Hey, Hey, ba fam, I could not be more excited to bring to you our two incredible powerhouse guests today. They are not just dominating beauty and wellness, but they are actively redefining what success looks like for black entrepreneurs. So first I want you all to meet Tamara Watkins, who is the brilliant president of Butterskin, which I love saying Butterskin, who's been making major moves since twenty twenty. She is a Howard University grad started am I allowed to say, you.
Know, good family family, you know.
Who started as a strategic consultant and literally helped transform that brand's trajectory. So she has twelve years of experience scaling multicultural beauty brands like Bevel you may have heard of them, and Hyperskin. Tamara has that rare combination of corporate expertise because she's led e commerce strategy at a little company you might know, Microsoft, Xbox, anybody I don't know,
a little upstart and authentic entrepreneurial hustle. She is the definite of walking in your purpose while also building generational wealth. And I know we're both raising tiny humans. And I have just heard a small snippet of what she has planned.
For her son.
He better get ready because Mama has big goals over him, all right. And then Tamara is joined by friend and fellow entrepreneur, doctor Kristen Edwards, who was the founder of Black and Green, which is a marketplace that focuses on
bringing non toxic, black owned beauty brands to the masses. Now, this Yale University graduate has a doctorate in public health from John Hopkins to boot like, because if there's one thing black women are going to do, we're going to get ourselves educated, you know, with the capital E. But before launching this marketplace, doctor Edwards was teaching future healthcare leaders at George Washington University and implementing cost saving initiatives
at the John Hopkins Health System. But then she launched Black and Green in twenty seventeen. Doctor Edwards has built a community of over two hundred and ten thousand followers, grated one point three million dollars in sales, and been
featured from Essence to The New York Times. And today we're going to get into how these queens are creating their own tables instead of waiting for seats, building wealth while lifting others and revolutionizing industries that weren't designed with us in mind, but will be rebuilt and reframed with us in mind thanks to these incredible powerhouse entrepreneurs. All right, let's get into it with our guest today, Tamera Watkins and doctor Kristen Edwards. Welcome ladies, Thank you great to
be here. I'm so excited, so brown ambition. We call our our audience a BAFAM. We really are here to celebrate and to uplift, especially in dark times like this. Both of y'all have launched or been a part of the launch of incredible brands that really center us and your products and your focus. Can y'all talk about how does it feel to be building these brands and these businesses at a time like we're in right now? What's keeping y'all motivated?
Did well?
To be honest, Like, I wake up every day and I feel so incredibly grateful to get to do what I do, Like I recognize that I am very privileged in order to lead the type of brand that but is and what Butter represents. So it feels great, but even now more so than ever, Like there's a battery in my back, Like I'm.
Literally in DC's backyard.
So Kristin, I don't know how you feel, but like because we're like so close to the DC area into government, like you really do feel it, and so I just feel even more empowered to, you know, continue to lead the charge for black rounded brands.
Did that come immediately?
I'll let doctor, I'll let doctor Edwards go to do we just call you doctor Edwards or Kristen or what do you prefer?
You know, you do whatever feels good to you. My mom would just say tell people to all you doctor Edwards. You work for that doctor.
But hell yeah, so do whatever your heart.
So for now you're going to be doctor.
Okay, tell you.
Doctor doctor Edwards. All right, well, I'll let you go ahead and go.
How are you feeling these days?
I think that's the best way to take a deep breath.
It can feel.
I think what I've been trying to focus on is what I can't control, And there's so much that I can't control, and I refuse to let what I can't control pull on my energy too much, and so I've been very intentional to worry about what I can control. What I can't control is where I spend my money. What I can't control is where I spend my time. What I can control is what I watch on TV. I'm not watching that little orange man do stuff because
I don't want to spend my time doing that. So I control what I can control and try to ensure I'm wrapped around love as much as possible. But like you said, that's a privilege. That's the privilege that I get to control that in that way. There's some people who can't control it the way I can control it. Well, I'm thankful for the privilege, and I'm using the privilege to try to control as much as possible.
I Mean, we all know entrepreneurship ain't for the faint of heart. It is stressful. It comes with all the challenges. And one of the things that I've been most grateful for is, like, thank goodness, no one sending me emails talking about can you send me five bullet points? And you know, and fearing for my job and at least being your own boss is some comfort in these days.
And I agree with brown ambition.
Even waking up the day after the election and then I came to talk to ba Fan and I just I was surprised by myself, by my hope and the level of inspiration. I was feeling the call to action battery in my back, just like you, Tamera. And that's why when I came into the new year with BA, I wanted to create a different format where it wasn't just about interviewing a specific guest, it was about really having around like a round table.
It's a virtual table, so there's no shape.
To but I call it the brown table, where we actually have people who represent not just success, but also the power of community. So that what I love about y'all is that you're not just fellow entrepreneurs, you are friends. And I want to hear about that relationship and how do y'all think your friendship has been growing over the years, and how that has helped y'all in scaling your businesses individually.
I'm glad you are shifting the format because one of the things that is I believe is going to be so key for black brands moving forward is collaboration and community.
I think so.
Often, and I was a couple of years ago I was sitting on like when I say a couple of this was a lot of years ago. Black Enterprise used to do the State of the Black Business calls I'm not sure if they still do them. But Earl Graves Junior was leading and he was saying that he recommends the future for black businesses when it comes to growth is collaboration. So and that would really be in the
shape of mergers and acquisitions essentially. And the reason why is because we're like fighting over like this small piece of the pie. When you know, if you get one eighth of a slice and I'm getting one eighth of the slice, why don't we combine those two slices together so that we can get a much larger slice and combine the resources. So I'm really glad that you're shifting the way that you format the podcast.
Thank you absolutely, But friendship wise, I mean, how have y'all supported each What has that looked like for y'all building alongside one another?
So I think the biggest advice is that for us, no, no, because it's just like.
So many ways.
But one of the biggest ways is making sure like when I get information, I'm cheering it with Kristen when she gets information and she's staring it with me. If I'm doing an event or if I can attend the event, if Butter can't be at the event, I'm reaching out to Christen and say, hey, I have.
An opportunity, do you want to take advantage of it.
It's just not gatekeeping, it's just being as open as we can with each other, because her success is my success and my success is her.
I think that's the beautiful thing about black women is that we operate as a community no matter what. We try to support each other as a community, no matter what. It's not a competition. I think that we often hear in the black community that we'll keep pulling down each other. I don't know where y'all find these people at, because that's not my reality at all. Every black woman I have met in business wants to see me succeed.
That's the core of what Black and Green is that.
When I read the article that the product marketed to black people are more toxic than the products markets everyone else, everyone was like, well, why don't you just create your own product? I was like, because that's not my genius, that's not what I'm good at. But there's tons of black women who do that already, you just don't know
that they exist. So that's gonna be my role is I'm going to try to create a community where they're all together or you can come find them and so community and working together in partnership and friendship.
It is natural. It's natural for black women.
And how have that relationship? Because y'all met in twenty you said twenty sixteen or.
Seventeen twenty sixteen?
And at what points were y'all in your career slash business? Cause Kristen doctor Edwards, rather you doesn't sound I'm not ready for Kristin yet.
I'm not ready. I'm not ready doctor Edwards.
You started you started your business around the same time, and I know Tamara you had your career in corporate, so's I love that. It's almost like y'all have been on this journey. But at that time, how did you nurture that relationship? I hear all the time from people, how.
Do I get a mentor? How do you meet people in.
You know network and all of that. So talk a little bit about y'all have nurtured your relationship all this time.
Just stand in contact, Just send in a text message. Hey, how's it going. Hey, there's a grant opportunity.
You should check it out. Hey, I'm going to be here. Do you want to link up? It's just it's not anything formal. You know, it's not like this a formal relationship.
It's just do what natural, doing what naturally comes to us, just as people who want to see each other succeed.
Yeah, and I think of a key piece of that is intentional. We're all busy women.
We all have a million things to do, have two little kids running around the year, got a husband running around the heere if I want to.
I can be busy, but it's making that attention. I can't.
I am busy, but it's making that attention when something crosses me and say, ooh have you seen about this?
Oh? Have you heard about this? Oh? Have you checked this out?
It's just that intention to make sure if I can't do it, maybe she can't.
Is there something anything that y'all have learned from one another that you sort of like keep with you.
Resilience, like just watching what Kristen has been through. Like the resilience, the will, the desire to continue going by any means necessary.
I mean if sometimes I'm just like, you know, if Kristen can do it, I can do it.
You know.
I have no excuse.
Well, there'll be one hundred percent honest because you know with podcasts, that's with the BA fan, that's.
What we're gonna do. I didn't remember how we met. Since we met. I had a car accident.
I was in a I had a traumatic brain injury, and my memory was impacted.
My walking was impacted.
The neurologist told my parents, I may be a vegetable for the rest of my life. I may never walk again, I may never talk again. I may I may never remember anything again. I don't remember my own wedding. That's how impacted my memory was. But the beauty of it is I don't remember how I met people. I don't remember when we met, but I remember how I feel around them that I remember, and I remember, Oh, she's a good person.
I remember that.
So it's interesting how the impact that you have when people are on me. That's how I have connected. I know whenever she's in my safe. I don't know how we met, I don't know how we trusted, how we know each other, but that she's good people.
Not me crying over here. I don't know. I'm gonna em listening to that.
Wow.
I mean I read about your accident and I was gonna let I was gonna take your lead on whether or not you wanted to talk about that, but I know that I didn't realize the impact it had to your memory.
That's really heartbreaking. Really yeah.
Wow, Yeah, how does that feel to hear that?
Tamara?
I just feel like that's one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard about her friendship.
It is beautiful.
And I when I so Sophia you she's brought us pr lead and she also worked with Kristen as well. And I remember when it happened, like she just burst into this office space that we were working in and she was just crying, just she was just so emotional, and I was just like, what happened, Sophia, what happened? And she told me and we all just like, you know, it was just it was so emotional because, like I said, like.
Kristen is like, you know, it's she's our sister, you know, So it was just so yeah, it was just a hard time. So thank you. I'm glad.
I mean, you've impacted me way more I feel like than I've impacted you.
But I'm glad to hear it. So thank you.
Yeah.
So, you know, launching a business and running that it's like nothing when you've survived that, and you're I read, is it true your newborn child was with you and your husband? And how are they are they okay?
Yeah, they're doing okay.
Oh thank god, because I would just.
Turn yeah, because when I when when I ruined this accident, I got airlifted to the hospital, and Amblus came to take my son to the hospital, and my my husband went with my son to the hospital. So we were in two separate hospitals, trying to bounce back and forth between the two hospitals and cs and both.
So it was like a very heavy time.
At the time, I was still on maternity leave from my position when I was a professor, and so since my brain injury, I can't go back to being a professor anymore. So that piece of my career, that chapter closed, and I focused one hundred percent on kind of the work of Black and Green, but because of my brain injury at the time of my at the time of the par ancident, I was doing everything. I was shipping and packing all the products out of my home office.
I stayed at the EPs. I was dropped.
I was I was doing everything, but after that I just can't do everything anymore. So I had to move my products to a fulfillment center. I had a higher team, and hiring people ain't easy and I ain't.
Got no money, so that maybe even harder. And so it was like trying to keep Black and Green alive?
Was the process like I'm just.
Yeah, and I got pregnant again.
Yeah, that's also the resilient piece. You were like, I'm not going to let this stop me.
I can't understand. And this wasn't like a long one. I mean this was like not that long ago. We're talking like seven eight years.
Oh my god, five, it was like five years ago.
Yeah, my accidents are live first twenty and nineteen and then I have a three year old and the five year old now, and so I got because me and my husband, our plan was like grinna have two kids back to back. So it was a probably like a little bit past my maybe a year and a half passed my kind of recovery from a accident and was like, all right, we're gonna do this. I was like, we said,
we're going to do this. So I had another son named Asher out of a biblical blessing, and so was a blessing to happen.
To little boys too. I have a five year old and an almost two year old.
Oh all boy, moms, Oh goodness.
Talk about resilience. Well, thank you for thank you for sharing that that your identity.
I mean reading your bio.
Yeah, I mean having come from the academia and then having to turn to walk away from that. Was that something that.
That you eventually had planned to do.
Did you launch Black and Green while working in higher ed? Was it sort of like, okay, well this timeline has changed, but at least I've been preparing for it a little bit.
Yeah.
I would love to say I did, but I didn't. I purposely went into academia with the idea I'll be doing that the rest of my life.
Because my thought was that.
Academia was a lower lift than when I was a hospital administration. There was no way for me to kind of do what I did as the administrator and run my business. But my vision was, oh, I can just teach a couple classes we and still run my business. And so I was envisioning that always being a steady a part of my income. And then another piece of it is that because I don't make money off of Black and Green.
So my vision was that my Professor would kind of be my financial security and Black and Green will be my fun passion project.
So that was the way I envisioned it.
And so that has shifted now, are you I would We'll get into that one real quick. So Black and Green, So maybe I missed. I thought it was like a marketplace where you are featuring all these products from other brands like a butter Scan or others. Is that the case, and then if that's the case, you're right, Oh okay, but you would like get their products and you were physically shipping them yourselves, so they weren't feeling.
Yeah, that's why I was doing it, But I have I'm changing my model now. When I started in twenty seventeen, the way it worked is people shipped the products to my house and I shipped out the product.
I'm a wagon going to the post office.
Yeah, and I'm like they were my best friends. I knew they like, hey, it like we was like we were height.
So they people would shipped the price of my house and I would shipped them out. And the reason being I didn't want to have In twenty seventeen, black owned businesses were newer, and so I didn't want to have the pressure of Black and Green cells on these new indie brands.
So if you're if you're trying to get.
Out your five or ten orders for to day, if you adding five or ten from Black and Green, that might overload you. And so I said, I can take that piece off of you and ship the stuff thrown to me. And so for those first couple of years, that's the way it worked where I was the warehouse. Then I moved to a filming center. But now post COVID, post George Floyd being murdered, post Brianna Taylor being murdered,
people are changing the way that they shop now. When I started Black and Green, people went a one stop shop to come shop and find things after being home for a whole year. Because of COVID, people got used to shopping online, in ordering all kinds of stuff online, and they don't need one store to go to anymore. They did all their research to go to all their places, and people started using Black and Green like a catalog. They'll come see the black on brands and go directly
to those websites that buy their products. So that's like, ooh, Christen, so stuff is in your warehouse expiring because people aren't buying it from you.
I can tell about my conversion rate. People are here, they still clicking, they still.
Coming, but they're not buying. And so because of that, I have to change the way I'm doing business. So now the way we're going to work is that the brands will ship it directly and you'll come to blank greed to find the brands and go ship shop from them directly.
Well, then wouldn't you get a fee like off the from the Yeah, so you were making money?
How?
Yeah, what's the business model?
Like?
Yeah?
So the way worked beforehand is I woud get fifty percent of MSRP to hold the products in my warehouse and then ship them. So basically I was purchasing products from the brands, I was holding them my warehouse, and then I was selling them at the purchased.
Now, oh, okay, okay, you're like a wholesaler almost like you're like you basically turned your house into target?
Is what you did?
I surely did.
Okay, OKAYRD.
I had people come into my house to pick stuff up and everything I live and do some girl, can I come get things?
Come on, girl, come get it. So that's that's the way that it worked.
I'm sorry it's not funny, but it's kind of fun.
It's cute, it actually is.
It's actually hilarious.
It's a little bit comforting because I love to hear about scrappy beginnings and like it's everything because you see now, like I'm meeting you years into this journey, and you read the bio and you look at the websites all beautiful and have the followers and stuff, but yeah, the humble beginnings of it all and just having the like to get it done and even if it's not like the way that someone with an MBA or like with a retail background or whatever would have done it, like,
you still got the shit done. And I just find that really inspiring.
That's all.
So thank you for sharing that, and thanks for helping me understand better about black and black and green and how that works. So then but when well, Tamara, you came to BUTTA when as in twenty twenty as president twenty.
Okay, and so right before COVID hit. Actually I started in March, the beginning.
Of my perfect timing.
It really was.
Okay, talk a little bit about that, because you all did you came from a you were a consultant. I know we talked about Microsoft, but you were a consultant and you were helping businesses scale. Is that what you were doing as a consultant.
Yeah.
So I was helping mainly brands that were black founded, scale their online acquisition and retention strategies.
So that's everything.
From meta ads strategy, Google ad strategy, search engine optimization, SEO email marketing strategy. So I came offering that suite of services to Buda in March of twenty twenty, and it was really great because the ownership really listened to me. Because when COVID happened and everything shut down and everyone had to stay in their homes, I was like, listen, all of my a lot of my other clients were just you know, they were fearful, and they really pulled.
Back on their marketing spend.
And I am a Warren Buffett fan, and a Melody Hobson fan, and a John Rogers fan. The aerial investments and you know they as often say, when everyone else is being afraid, that's when you should be you know, brave. And so while everyone else, all the other brands and companies were afraid to spend their marketing dollars. We went balls to the wall. We pushed the accelerator and so we started like.
Really ramping up our marketing budgets, and it was synergy. There was a lot of synergy.
Because black people were seeing what was going on, you know, and so they wanted to It was a battery in their back to support black founded brands because they realized, Okay, where we spend our dollars matter, and so we need to spend those dollars with brands that are going to.
Reinvest it into our communities.
And so once we did that, growth was exponential, like it was a fast moving train.
I love that.
They make so much sense to Warren Buffett reference too, because I know him as an investor and he talks about you know, and I always say that when the market's going down, it's like it's it clearest thing sale, get some stuff you know that's cute apples, apples fifty percent off today. That's really why is the Melody Hobson She she's Aerial Investments.
She's a yeah, she's co CEO.
Co CEO, right. I also think about Stacy Brown Philpott from Task rab At CEO and she she was a CEO at task Rabbit and she has sench launched a venture capital fund too. She's just another rare black female unicorn in venture capital. And yeah, it's really nice to hear that I feel that way about Brown Ambition. I don't know if to give y'all some backstory. BA. We've been around since twenty fifteen as a podcast, and I was a journalist, a business journalist at like Yahoo Finance
Business Insider. I did a SEO marketing for a financial fintech company for like five years, so marketing sisters here. And yeah, I went full time with Brown Ambition And honestly, I went full time as a solopreneur in twenty twenty one, and I have a coaching practice that I do. But when my business partner for Brown Ambition left at the end of twenty four it was my opportunity to like
recharge the way that I approached Brown Ambition. And I had the great fortune to attend this conference called afro Tech.
Have y'all Oh I went in November. You were in Houston.
Yeah you were there too, Yeah, well there was only about thirty thousand of us.
Oh yeah, yeah, it was a lot.
Well Tamra then you know, I had not been to I mean, Morgan is one of the first guests on Brown Ambition all those years ago, and anyway, and when I was there, I left with this light. I left with this sort of like quiet knowledge that, oh, Brown Ambition is way more than a podcast. It's been my baby all these years, and it's been this platform and this way of you know, really century women of color
and conversations around wealth building. But for me, I'm like the business, the size of it, the scope of it. It was impossible to leave Afro Tech just thinking of it as a podcast. And now I'm I'm you know, balls to the wall too about creating a real, you know,
media platform. And you see people like Joy Reid losing their shows at MSNBC and Rashida Jones leaving NBC, and like these these voices in media and how necessary and essential they are at a time like this, and I I just really feel that that calling and by hearing from people like y'all too, it's just very inspiring because I used to have these conversations very much like oh, that's great that you did that. Now I feel like I am trying to gobble up as much intel and
as much guidance because I want to build too. It's very it's very inspiring, and I don't have a question. I just wanted to share that.
That's all all right.
So with butterskin, what makes it different than other brands that are on the shelf and why should we be buying up all y'all's products?
Well, what makes us different is the founding mission. So BUTA was founded by an actor named Dorian Ornad. He was on a lot of photo shoots. He was on a lot of sets for movies and TV and film, and so when you're an actor or an actress, you have to wear a lot of makeup usually, and so that was the case for him, and when he would come home, he did not like the way that his skin looked once he would take the makeup off, and so he set out.
To change that.
But when he would go into beauty department stores or maybe even like a mass retail like CBS, he would not see skincare brands that reflected him from the shelf. So he wouldn't see models that look like his mom or his sisters. His dad is cousins, and so he set out to change that. So he went to private equity and he worked with the lab.
He was really really.
Deeply involved in the product development process, and so he created products that address the skincare concerns of black and brown people. So, for example, I don't know when I was younger, and even recently, you go into a drug store or department store.
And first off, you see someone that doesn't look like you're at the counter.
Secondly, you read the packaging and it says for redness.
Who gets redness?
I'm way too rich of a complexion. I don't get redness. I get dark spots. And so our skincare products are high quality, they're vegan, and they help to address the skincare concerns that we actually have.
So even when it comes to like.
Anti aging, like a lot of brands you know that are competitors, they tend to say anti agent. We don't do anti agent because we all know most black people, what do we all.
Say when it comes to agent? Right, so we believe that we don't age.
I only get half that promise. I represent.
I represent the melanine challenge of our sisters out there.
Hey, we're all we're all family over.
Here, thank you in the club.
We all fam We all fam. Yeah.
So like the thing is like even that, like we don't do anti agent, we do skin preservation. So just making sure that we are authentically speaking to the community, we're representing people in the community, and we're also solving the skincare concerns that people in our community have.
And also I'm assuming making sure that the products that we are creating don't have anything toxic to us.
That's all right, I.
Mean I was a just for me kid, like you know, the box, the relaxers in the box, and seeing what you seeing the lawsuits against companies and the dangers and we're still finding out there's probably not enough research. I know, with doctor Edwards with your health background, I don't know if you want to speak on that, but like the impact to black women by the toxicity of the products that we have been sold for so long.
And I go to a grocery store.
Even my local like neighboring grocery store, and I well, and I'm not talking about a CBS or like a target where you expect to see like a different a lot of different brands in healthcare. But I'll see Shay, and I'll see Miss Jesse's and I'll see you know, all these black owned beauty brands at my supermarket even And that's wonderful, But are you finding that today's products are you know, really and truly like healthy for us
and better for us? And how would you educate consumers as we're shopping to make sure that we are like being smart about the products that we're putting on us, on our bodies, our hair.
So I always recommend to take the food label approach to be honest.
Like, just like you look at a nutrition label on your on the packaging of your food, the ingredient list is the nutrition lebel.
With the food label, like there's gonna be a lot of things on there. You just don't know what it is and don't know what it.
Is exactly true. And some of it you'll look it up and it's like, huhoba oil.
Okay, I didn't know that that's true.
That I was about to call you, doctor Edwards man doctor.
So I love that question.
So the report I read that kind of showed how the products marketed to black people are more toxic than the products marks everyone else. The Environmental Working Group did that report in twenty fifteen. I just work with them to redo that report to kind of see have things changed since twenty fifteen. I may have the dates wrong. I was trying to look over here to get the
exact dates. It might be Okay, there's a twenty sixteen report, so they just redid it between twenty five I work with them to redo that report and we found a couple of things.
Have things gotten better?
They have gotten better, and so there's a lot of toxic ingredients that we don't see being used anymore, like parabins. We have seen a decrease in those. But what concerns me is we also saw increase in fragrance and undisclosed fragrances. And why that concerns me is that our fragrance mixture can be a mixture of over a thousand different ingredients
and we don't disclose what you are in them. It can be all kind of ingredients that you're throwing in that were linked with cancer or can be for mal the high releases. So it's all kinds of things that can be in fragrance, undiscloys, fragrances, and so we did see an increase in that.
What that showed me is that us.
Doing this work on trying to on what ingredients we need to pull out of products is not the real battle because manufacturers are smart. They said, Okay, if you don't want parabans anymore, we can pull out a parabin but we can stick the thing that we want in this undisclosed ingredient, so we still get a harmful ingredient in there. Anyways, I said, so, what I want the push to be is on the manufacturers to prove that the product is safe, not to avoid a toxic ingredient.
I want to switch the responsibility to be if you want to put your products on the shelf, you get to prove to me that it is safe. Because people assume if it's on the shelf, it must be safe for me, and that's not true at all. And the way to make it easier for consumers, because it's a lot of work and there's no way you can know these thousands of ingredients and which ones are safe and which ones aren't. The way to make easier is one shop with the place like Black and Green where we
do all the work for you. Shop with marketplaces that do all that for you to make sure that you have non foxsing ingredients in there. So that's one way to make it easier for folks the purchase products. I don't have the expectation that you're going to undergo the background every single one, and the background every single ingredient there. There's no way you'll know. And they're hoping that you don't know it's marketed and it's named in the way
that you won't know it's just some crazy ingredient. Another kind of tool I use. If you can't pronounce it, stay away from it. That's kind of like the more of a food label thing. If you can't pronounce it, you don't I recognize it. It's probably not the best thing for you to use. Is that one hundred percent truth? No, it's not one hundred percent truth, but it's a good way for you to get a little test for it when you're trying it out.
So, Kristen, can I ask you questions to follow up to that? In terms of you wanting manufacturers to prove to a consumer that the product is non toxic? What would that look like?
Oh?
I love that question. So what would that I imagine us having a I imagine having a report. I don't want to use the word report, but kind of having a metric that say you have to prove your safety from these seven things that I don't want us to have to go test every single ingredient to figure out what are the health of negative health effects of those ingredients.
I want you to come to us and prove the safety of your product, like, hey, we have done the testing of this, we have verified the health of this, we have verified them when these products are mixed together, here are the outcomes of this product. So I want the manufacturers to do the work of proving to us that it's safe before we say, okay, check mark you can put on our shelves.
Now does that make sense?
It's like a like an organic label, you'd have to sort of set the It's so it's subjective, right, Like what's toxic? Really right?
And like there's like the level of things is toxic.
And maybe it would take like you'd have to use a certain product one hundred thousand times before it had those adverse impacts. And I see that with sunscreen, it's so freaking hard to like, I'm like, what do I what sunscreen is safe? Like the fuck? It's so part of my friends. I have a pine mouth, But it's it's frustrating. Yeah, as a consumer, and I love the idea of Black and Green being that that sort of screen which does put a lot of burden on Black
and Green, which you should get paid for. And I hope you're yeah, you talk about grants and stuff and all that, but I wonder like, yeah, how who there is no organization that defines those terms. So it would be up to an organization like Black and Green today, Well you can't you can't sell on our website unless you have these you meet these like metrics and have this seal of approval.
And Black and Green uses an Environmental Working Group, So that's the organization that has done the work and doing the research under every single product, every single ingredient, trying to understand the toxicity of that ingredient itself. And so that is one that that is one organization that exists that does some of this work for us. And they have an I believe they have an app where you can scan the product and can let you know kind
of what the toxicity score of that is. So any product on Black and Green wed let you know what does what does the e that used toxicity score? And it's also something important to mention is that in the European Union they do a much better job than we do in America than in America. But we don't tell you what products, what ingredients you can use, what ingredients you shouldn't use. And the European edients say, okay, you can use the ingredient, only use this much of it.
We can only use as much of it. They have regulations on the percentage of ingredients that you can use, and so they have a lot more control over the things that are being put into products. And so the beauty of that is is that we just say an ingredient is bad, ingredient is bad, okay, cool, versus this say ingredient in this a lot is bad. If you
use this amount of it, it's okay. And so they have a lot more regulations around the actual amount of ingredients that could be used, which I like that that I think that it takes. It's still a less of science be there, and it's still it just controls it in different ways than control is here. We don't have any federal control in the America at all.
States are doing it.
So Maryland had done some work to advance and ingredients, California had done some work to band ingredients, and so states are taking on the responsibility of banding ingredients and personal care products.
Okay, now imagine like for you, Tamera, as a business owner or not a business owner, but being a part of butterscan hearing that, Can you talk a little bit about what that would look like from it? Like it almost would add a lot more work on the creator side, the founder side, and we want more businesses by us. But do you see any limitation there or any like any other perspective to add to that conversation.
I do.
I think it would put especially if you're a smaller business. I think if you are.
The size of let's just stay a butter skin and you do have access to private equity dollars in your leveraged business, maybe not so much. But if you're a smaller business, it could put more of a burden on
you because these processes are expensive. Working with these EWGs are expensive, and so that is definitely it could I'm not gonna say it definitely will, but it could chip away, you know, at your margins, because either you're gonna have to raise the price of your product or you're gonna have to take.
More of a hit on the margins of the product. But you know, I think.
Chris, and I was actually going to ask you, do you think, in terms of your business model, would you consider becoming a service that helps to basically become like the easy pass lane for black and brown businesses to work with the EWGs in order to get them those certifications that they need, Because I think another consideration is the bandwidth and capacity if you're a solopreneur, like you're already looking at, you know, working with packaging, marketing, et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera, and now I have to work with these e wg's which I may or may not know anything about, you know, to get these certifications. So have you thought about that like as an additional arm of your business.
Yeah, I definitely have like explored doing that and try to help people get these certifications and testing on their products because I care about it.
What I found is how do I say this in the right way?
What I found is it didn't lead to the person making more sell and so it was hard for to make the choice to investment.
They said, so, okay, that's America for you.
You know, because we're hearing something different from OLTA.
Ooh what do you hear?
So I'm hearing that when these badges for these certifications are present on PDP pages, PDP product display pages for those are in the e commerce world, they see an increase in conversion rate on those PDP pages. So I think if you can equip people business owners with that data on how these badges are actually going to benefit their sales, like, you know, incrementally, I think it would help that conversation goes maybe a little bit smoothing.
Yes, I love that if basically I need the data to show by you doing that, that is going to increase your sales.
But I didn't have that data.
I said, I, you just need to do it because's the right thing to do. And that wasn't enough for to get people to move but needed So it's not.
Like they did it and then they found out that they weren't making more sales. It's like to get them to do it, you have they're looking for you to tell me, like, what's the business case for this?
Right?
Classic?
Right, this is the classic conundrum with DEI efforts. And also you know, like, well, what's the business case for this? Make it make sense?
That's an obvious when you know, I mean the numbers that the number It's like if you're a white business and you're marketing to one hundred white people and there's fifty black people that you can also market to.
Now you have an extra fifty customers. The math is just the man.
Yeah, I don't know, you're making too much sense to Mara. I don't know about that. It's just like the logic does it have a place here in America anymore? I don't know, but one percent of greed that sounds that sounds really great. So you're and then to Mara with butterskin, You're sold in Ulta stores.
Yep, we're in Alta, Amazon, Macy's, JC, Pennies, and coming more to some other stores.
Okay.
I mean I'm thinking about BA FAM and I know that they're resonating with the conversation about how to be better about picking products off the shelves. So I love that we know black and green. Now I'm always trying to put myself in their shoes of like what do they want? I know that getting the inside scoop on
like how a beauty brand is. In conversation with Alta, Alta has sort of emerged as it'd be great to have something from Alta on in the future, but they've sort of emerged as like they're about to sell sacred product. They've always sold Tracy Yellis Ross's products and I've talked to Kim Lewis, the CEO of Cromex, and she sells her products there. So have y'all been having a good
relationship with them and have they helped? Has it been like an engine for growth being in a brick and mortar store like that for Butterskin.
Absolutely definitely an engine for growth.
I love that Olta and Macy's and JC Pennies like they're very much supporters of the brand and so they do things like because make no mistake, going into brick and mortar is very expensive, Like I think a lot of brands think it's like you know, the Panaceo or like the north Star, and it can be, but it
is very capital intensive. But once you get in there, because there is this, you have to show your worth, Like once you're on the shelves, that's just not even half the bat, that's a quarter of the battle.
Then you have to prove that you can stay in there.
And so may season all to JC Penny, all of our retail partners have been really great about supporting us and giving us the tools and the resources that we need in order to make sure that we can stay on the shelves.
And what does that look like like if you're someone who wants to work with those kinds of partners, what makes a good partner? What kind of resources is it that they give you? Like educating, I mean you probably don't need education on how to grow your brand, but like placement on shelves, like intel on what's selling and what's not selling. They give you patience to like try things out and if it doesn't sell immediately, they don't kick you off the shelves.
What a good partner in business?
So one of the things that they might do so say, for example, like once you're on the shelf, you really need to the expectation is that you will allocate marketing and advertising dollars in order to inform your community that you're on the shelf now prior to me, prior to like twenty sixteen and me working with brands that are in brick and mortar. Like in my mind, you know, you're thinking, oh, I'm at Alta Macy's now, Like the work is done and like the products are just going
to sell themselves. Now you have to allocate you know, X amount of dollars in order to inform your customers and other customers that the product is there. And so the expectations is that you will use your digital marketing dollars to or really reallocate your digital marketing dollars that you may have earmarked to spend to drive traffic to your own website. Now you have to spend those dollars to drive traffic to Alta's websites. Which might be counterintuitive, right,
but that is an expectation. But one of the resources that Alta Macy's may offer a black founded or a personal color brand is you know, hey, so we want you to spend fifty thousand dollars on advertising, but we're gonna you know, co sponsor some of that. So that will just basically subsidize or all set the cost of the marketing, which is really.
Helpful, you know, like twenty five thousand dollars.
You know, it could be a real big help to a brand that might you know, have some cash flow challenges.
That's the interesting thing I want to talk about with host selling and a business in the marketing that when you and the price of products and see if I can do this in a quick way. So let's say a product costs ten dollars. When you host sell it, you usually gonna be a fifty percent of MSRP. So the person's going to take home five dollars and the brand, the Alta, it's going to take home five dollars, is
fifty percent is pretty fair term. Sometimes you can get sixty percent of you giving to the brand or seventy percent, depending on what the brand is. And so there's already that split there. And then on top of that split, they want you to put money behind pushing people to buy from them instead of buying from me directly. So that's the that's the piece of that's the piece of host selling and brick and mortars that I wanted to pay attention to, and what I am encouraging people as
an owner of a marketplace. I encourage people go directly and buy directly from that brand because that ensures that they get all the money.
I don't know if that hurts or helps.
Like, if you have your thing at Aulta, I'm trying to make my Aulta look good, so I want my people to buy some Ulta. I'm like I want to I want to get all the money, so making you get all the money.
If you need butter in a hurry, then you go to Alta. You know, if you needed a hurry, you go to Macy's or you go to jcpenny.
So it just depends on you, know how quickly you need your products. If you're about to go out of town and you can't wait for two day shipping, please take yourself to Alta and pick some butter products up.
And then you may have more on your website than you do.
Yeah great, Yeah, limited shelf space, so not all the products are are not available at Alta, but we are working on that. We're looking at purchasing behaviors in store versus online and trying to figure out how can we create Alta jcpenny retailer exclusives that cater more to the needs of people shopping in person.
Oh I love it, Okay, because I just want to go a little bit deeper into your background to merit because now you're the president that's your title president at Butta, yes, where as a president of grow Okay, and with your career trajectory, can you talk about like how have you learned the keys to growing businesses and scaling businesses, and like, what advice would you give to a really ambitious entrepreneur, even like myself who is a solopreneur but wants to
become much bigger and wants to reach that next level. And from me, like what I hear is like, well, venture capital is harder to come by, so I've been looking at things like grants and and you know, other opportunities to raise capital. And I just wonder, with all your expertise, how have you gained so much knowledge? And like, what advice would you have for me us via a fam I.
Have a lot of advice.
I talk about this a lot with my husband, just some of my things I wish people knew.
So, okay, talk to me.
You forget your husband. He's plants, sick of it.
He's like, you're gonna go find a microphone somewhere.
Yeah, okay. So the first one is VC.
I would say when it comes to venture capital and grants, I would also say.
Maybe don't stop that. But I always like to focus my attention on the big bets, the big rocks.
So grants are cool, right, Like you get ten thousand and fifty thousand and that's that's some real money. But money that can really make a difference in your life is going to be by maybe by going to private equity and venture capital because the same amount of time that you're spending applying for a grant, because you know, every single grand application want you to upload a unique video and a unique process application and that could take you by the time.
You're finished, you know, four hours.
Half your day is gone when you can be pitching to private equity folks, or you can be building relationships with investment bankers things like that, the people who also have a lot.
Of money to invest in brands.
So I would say that also really get the time to know your numbers, like you need to know how to so you need to be fluent in financial statements.
So you need to know cash flow statements, income statements, and balance sheets because that's how private equity and VC are also going to evaluate your business. It's your business report card. And so if you don't know that, I feel a lot of founders talk about the.
Warm and fuzzies, you know, the branding and community building and all that is also important, but the foundation of your business is also those financial statements.
I do have them I have a great bookkeeper and she creates beautiful reports, and oh god, I sound like President Orange when I say beautiful reports. But it's when I even think about standing, I think I have so much work to do. It's crazy how I feel like I'm starting from a scratch, even though I've been doing this podcast for ten years. But it really feels like bringing all the skills Thatt's across my career into this
one like new chapter. And I genuinely feel like I'm starting from scratch in a lot of ways, which is exciting but intimidating because I know about brown ambition, but like to explain it to a venture capital fund, like how am I going to build the confidence?
Where am I gonna?
What do I what practice practice makes perfect?
Like I think the more you pitch, you know, or the more enough pitching, and the more you try to inform people about an investment opportunity in your business, the easier.
It will become. But also think about I always say like, and I.
Said this earlier at the start of the podcast, is I would encourage you to get married again. And when I say get married, I mean like, maybe take on a partner, because what your partner what you may be good at is what your partner is not so good at, and so you both you combine your strengths. Because I also see a lot of business owners doing it by themselves and it's hard.
I don't encourage it.
Yeah, no, I Afrotech.
Actually I was sitting at the table with Oh, sorry, doctor Edwards, go ahead.
I'm just saying I agree. I don't encourage either because I'm tied mm hmm.
Like you know how women are just like you, you want a man and just come along.
And help us out, you know kind of thing.
So I think it's the same way. I think you're stronger with partnership. Even Warren Buffet says that he's like, the most of the important decision you'll make of your life is who you get married to.
Yep, yep.
Yeah.
And I think as a business owner, absolutely, And I think what I agree is what I'm trying to say. And I'm a little bit at this point where I would definitely be thinking about that. And at Afrotech, I
was at a table and there was Raquel Martin. She's this, you know, incredible therapist and she has a big brand in a podcast and a book coming out and She was sitting next to Rachel Rogers, who of course is like we should all be millionaires in like a business battie and listening to them debate about Raquel's approach to like her business and and basically she wants to start a nonprofit arm and then Rachel's like, listen, we all think we need to start nonprofits. Like maybe we don't
need another non profit. We need to make money money, and yes, and she was ben Roquel was like really firm in her purpose and like, but this is for the people. And she's like very rooted and like wasn't giving anything. And I was looking at them and I'm like, well, it sounds like you guys just need to like combine forces. And I mean obviously not like literally together, but having someone who has more of that like just business bowl sense, you know, of like, well, here's how we can take
it to the next level. That's definitely in the in the lane that I'm going right now. That's like where I'm thinking is like, how do I get in more spaces like afrotech where I can be in community with other people who may be interested in helping like a brand like Brown Ambition become what I envision it, and I'm excited for that because working alone is not so fun.
It is not as all just challenging, and you know, you're your own homework, you know, like you're writing your own homework. So there's no one sitting on your shoulder going, uh no, I don't think we should invest twenty thousand dollars, like we have this much in the bank.
Here are the metrics, like, here's a report card.
I was gonna askt GPT what they thought about something earlier today and I was like, not you trying to like get a business partnership from about like stop it. I was like, well, what do you think how should I plan my day?
I do you think that's a great idea?
Oh?
Because it's unattached, it's nons it's not emotional. It's not your baby. He can tell you your baby's ugly, and you know, it's just kind of like, yeah, I think you do need someone that has a healthy amount of detachment to advise you on things.
And back to the EC conversation. Black and Green has not raised any money at all. We've only done it with grants and we've probably gotten about one hundred thousand dollars at grants, which is like great, but you're right. It took a lot of work and a lot of videos, a lot of them doing this and a lot of that didn't have to do that. And I have to be honest with you, I'm scared to get a VC. I'm scared. I'm scared that they're going to change there.
I think what my fear is that the way I want to do business is not the way to make a lot of money. They're gonna want me to make a different choice that's gonna be different than.
What I want to do.
So I don't want to give that up. So I don't want to think I want to give a power. But I have come to gripts. I can't grow without their money, and so my growth is going to be hindered.
I need a team, I need people.
I'm tired, and I can only grow so much and I can only afford I can't afford I can't afford help, and so I'm stunting myself because of my inability to go get VC money.
I know all this, I know it, but I haven't.
And listen, working at Microsoft, one of the things that I realized that makes that engine run so smooth and efficient is at Microsoft, people do one job. If you're great at SEO, that is your right.
At customer service, that is your one job. And the reason why is because it creates efficiencies.
So I'm not having I'm not having to shift from product development to customer service to fulfillment to operations to finance. Like you are just highly efficient and that's how that engine runs. And so I think, as black founders, black entrepreneurs, we really got to get out of this one hundred percent ownership because, like you said, Christian, like you, it stunts the growth.
I've had this conversation multiple times.
People say, you just have to find the right investor, Like you're not going to lose all your control if you've lost all your controls because you didn't find the right investor, Just find the right investment. So I'm trying to find the right investor. And because I know that my growth is dependent upon.
It, I'm like, damn speaking, I'm needing to help. I need my producer to be here during these episodes like this, But whatever, why are we in the same boat? Doctor Edwards like legit And I just really felt what you were saying, and I and thank you, Tamara for like telling me what I need to hear that I need to hear it again. I heard it at that table with Rachel and Morgan and Raquel and the other people that offer tech, and I need to hear more of it.
And that's why I'm I'm so excited to hear about like these VC.
I know that we're at a time and.
There's so many things where it's like there's not enough funding for black owned businesses and dada da da da.
But I'm very much in like the.
Okay, but there's still money out theres and there's still some people who want and like, how can I be the one who gets the funding?
You know?
And so these like where would you suggest we should start? Doctor Edwards? And I, you know, reach like and I think part of it doctor Edwards for me too. It's like a little bit of pride I when you said grading your own work, because I'm so close to this baby, I'm a little bit self conscious that someone's going to come and say this is all you did in ten years to show like, you know, but I have to get over that if I really want help, right, So Tamara, what do you think what should we do?
So you know what you just said, that's all you did in ten years. So here's the thing that.
I've I've learned is it's all about perception and storytelling. So it's how you tell your story to an investor who who is seeking to, you know, help you put some jet fuel on your baby the lett it grow. So that's one thing, change the way that you tell the story and a perception. Then the second one would be to position yourself in spaces where you can start to form relationships with investment bankers. Because it might not be a venture capital firm, it might be a private
equity firm. So start going to conferences where you can interact and start to cultivate relationship with these people because they might not invest immediately, but you're starting to build that.
Really, it's like dating. I always equate everything to like, it's like dating, Like you.
Just have to build a relationship because if you meet somebody a guy at the bar, restaurant, wherever you choose to socialize, and they try to take it to make a home run, immediately, you're like, you know, but if they gradually court you, which is what you would be doing with investors, updating them on Hey, here's my progress.
You're in Chicago. I'm going to be in Chicago. Can I take you for coffee?
Like those type of interactions and then you will eventually, you.
Know, get an investor. So that's what I would say.
Go to conferences, and it doesn't have to be the conferences that we all know about, like look up some other ones, and AI is a great resource to help you find those.
Yeah.
I mean I got invited to a small dinner party with Morgan and Afrotech and I sat next to literally a vc funder who was on her way to the Black Ambition, like I don't know event where they like give out their million dollar reward. By the way, hadn't heard a black ambition. That was embarrassing and also fun because I'm like brown envision Black Ambition. Great, but that's Pharrell's VC or his like investment fund. Anyway, My point is I sat next to her and I just was like, Oh, that's really cool.
Uh huh. That's for other people to think about.
So it's like changing, yeah, to being at tables like that and understanding you know, what those roles even mean, Like even you saying maybe it's not VC, maybe it's private equity, Like what's the difference.
The difference is expectation of return. Okay, you know, VC.
Like because from a number standpoint, from a numbers standpoint, VC is looking at it from every let's say ten businesses that they invest.
In, one is gonna like really set it off.
So they have the expectation that you were gonna set it off. Versus versus private equity, like they're looking to sell, to buy, create some operational efficiencies, and then sell.
So it's like real estate investors, but for businesses. Mmmm.
So which one is like that? I don't know.
They both sound scary?
Which one does? Butter use, we'll go that way.
We're private equity. We're private. Private equity tends to run a leadership.
So there's like, you're not VC's in the past they've handed out like these big blank checks essential almost and so you got you get a lot more money to play with. But the expectation is a lot more pressure.
The expectation is for growth, for exponential growth is a lot higher versus private equity, Like they're looking to, like I said, create some operational efficiencies and then sell you off usually eighteen to I don't know, anywhere from like a year to five years sell you know who, another private equity firm perhaps, or another business.
Oh it's so icy. Well that's the real estate thing. It's got to flipping a house a little bit. You make a little bit off the top. But then as you as the founder or as the company, like, do you get a say and who your next owner is going to be?
That's a little you do you do typically though those type of things are you know, you hire a business broker usually, or you can start to build those relationships with investment bankers as well, So yeah, you have a say in it.
All right, Well, thank y'all so much for I love the I love that even Doctor Edwards, you're getting to share a little bit about your journey with Tamara that maybe you hadn't before, about like your like how you're thinking about funding your company. And I feel like after this, y'all are gonna have to like touch Yeah.
I know, I'm about to text you like help me get yeah, okay, I yeah.
And I just feel like doctor Edward's like, we can't let this stop us, Like I can't let a little bit of like hesitation. And Tamara is one of those groundbreakers who's been there and understands the language, and can we can like someone that we can trust. I'm like my friend now too, but like someone that can make you feel a little bit more comfortable pushing forward, because I'll be damned if I let that stop me from like really helping me create this vision.
It's not going to stop you.
Yeah, amen, you either.
All right, well, Thanky'll thank y'all so much for joining me at the Brown table at Brown Ambition, doctor Kristen Edwards that I is going to trip everybody else. You know, your mom really did her big one with that. She was like the challenge and tamyor Watkins of butda. Thank y'all so much for joining Brown Ambition.
Be a fan.
Make sure you check the show notes. I'm going to put links to their socials and where you can shop and you know, buy their products and check out all their resources in the show notes.
And thank y'all.
I hope that you'd take care.
Thank you,