Bobbi Brown: Redefining Success One Venture at a Time

Hi, sheep Pivots listeners.

I'm so excited to share with you that we've been nominated for the second year in a row for Signal Awards Listener's choice for Most Inspirational Episode for this season's episode with Ukrainian refugee Tetiana Podle. But in order to win, we need your vote. To vote for our episode, visit the link in our Instagram bio at sheep Pivots the Podcast, or search for sheep Pivots when you go to vote dot Signal Award dot com. Tetiana story is truly incredible.

I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman.

Today.

I'm thrilled to be sharing our live she Pivots recording. We did this summer with the phenomenal Bobby Brown. You know that Bobby Brown in full transparency. Bobby has been a long time dream guest of mine. Okay, I know I say that a lot, but her pivots always fascinated me. From building a massive beauty empire to recently founding Joe Road Beauty, I wanted to know if the pivot into something smaller felt more fulfilling.

So a quick refresh before we hop into the episode.

Bobby founded and built the now household beauty brand Bobby Brown in the nineties and sold it to Estey Lauter shortly after and signed the infamous non compete clause that prevented her from starting another beauty brand for twenty five years. So she stayed on with the company for over twenty years and built it into a billion dollar brand. Then, almost twenty five years to the day after she signed her non compete. She launched her own brand again, Jones

Let's jump right in. My name is Sherry Pasparella.

I am the executive director of the Church, on behalf of myself and our lovely board and all of our team would like to welcome you warmly here today. I was thinking a lot about the ways in which she Pivots and the idea of empowered and empowering women connects with the spirit of creativity, which is what we do here. And I think Emily and Bobby embody the notion of a contemporary creative woman as somebody who's able to define on their own terms how their voice and vision can

So thank you so much for joining this live podcast of she Pivots. I was just chatting with Bobby in the back before. We've only done a handful of them. So we've done. We've interviewed live on stage Stacy London from What Not to Where, Robin Arzon from Pelotony launched her book, and Vice President Kamala Harris and today Bobby Brown.

And you know what you can't do.

With three kids in three and a half years in a global pandemic anything at all, And you definitely can't work on an upcoming presidential campaign which will determine basically the next wave of your political future. So I saw my career falling apart before me, and it.

Was out of my control.

So when Cherry and I were chatting about we could potentially do together, she's so generous and said, well, who were your dream guests?

Maybe we can try to get them.

The next thing I said is that I've actually always wanted to of you, Bobby Brown, because she exemplifies for me this idea that you can have a vision of success, of what looks like success having a big business, and I'm going to assume a little bit here, but maybe finding a different kind of happiness potentially more in changing your version of success with the business that she has now in so many other ventures. So the church as a cultural center is the perfect place to have this conversation.

We were just chatting that before.

But so I'm so excited to bring up the incredible Bobby Brown. Bobby, your resume is long, extensive. We'll get to some great highlights. Why don't we just start every interview?

What is your name and what do you do?

My name is Bobby Brown. It's always a weird thing. I'm a makeup artist. That's what I think of myself. I'm a makeup artist. I'm a serial entrepreneur, I'm a wife, I am a mother, and I am a grandmother.

So let's go back. Let's start from the beginning. We're going to do a little chronological here. Then we're going to get more interesting. But I want to start back to when you were a teenager and you decided to go well, you didn't know that you were going into.

Makeup, but you loved it. What was it about makeup that drew you in?

You know?

I was.

I had gone to two colleges, didn't like either of them. Told my mom I wanted to drop out. I thought it was really boring. It was really boring, it wasn't interesting. And she said, you can't. You have to go to school. And I said, but I don't know what I want to do. She said, forget what you want to do for a living. If today's your birthday, you could do anything. What would you want to do. I could have said go to Paris. I could have said, you know, eat brownies.

Well, you have said that when you were when you were younger, when you were a teenager, that you thought you would always be.

A teacher and a mother.

Do you feel like you continuously kept coming back to that throughout your career or do you feel like you went on different paths.

I have been a teacher and a mother, and so I have accomplished that, and you know, and I also have accomplished way more than I ever dreamed or thought possible. I mean, never in a million years would I have thought that I have experienced and accomplished what I have. And if there was a crystal ball that said this is going to be your life, I would have said, no,

What did you think your life was going to look like? You say, you know, you weren't really sure, But what did you think it was going to look like?

I mean, I thought I would live in the suburbs and marry a Jewish guy. I did both of those things, you know, I thought I would I don't know, work in a I don't know, a department store. I don't know. I never thought. I don't think about things before I do it. I know that sounds really weird. I'm just like, oh, that sounds interesting, that looks interesting, and I just dive.

In and dive in.

She did.

It was the nineties and Bobby saw a gap in the makeup industry and decided to fill it by going against the mainstream trends and releasing a makeup brand with neutral tones. It took off and became the household name for accessible and natural makeup. What did success look like to you at that point? Like, what were you trying to get to?

Well, I was trying to be able to pay my four hundred dollars rent. That was by far the number one thing, seriously, and you know, my father for a graduation from college, gave me my rent for a year, and I'll never forget. I called him up and he gave me a credit card. He said, you have two hundred and fifty dollars to spend on this credit card. And I said okay, and I could never ever do it. And then I kept getting like I kept owing money, and so the interest built up, and I called my dad.

You did an interview on one of your podcasts with Mickey Drexler from the fashion industry, and you talked in that interview a lot about work ethic and asking where you thought his came from. So I'm going to flip that question to you. What do you think your work ethic looks like and where do you think it came from?

Well being from Chicago yay. Everybody like we're you know, we're Midwestern people, like we're solid people. I watched my grandparents' work. I watched my parents' work. Everybody worked hard to get where they were, and I watched Papa Sam build all his businesses, not realizing I was learning. Honestly, most of the things I learned about now I know it's called marketing and pr I learned from watching Papa Sam. How he treated people, what were their businesses. I mean, his

So and now that look would be very chic.

Now it's finally back. Yes, fanny packs and backpacks and clogs. You know, I'm happy you led the way. I'm telling him you definitely did.

So. You started Bobby Brown Cosmetics because you were mixing your own on set. You found a partner at the beginning of that partnership. How even you started with the partner, How did you decide to launch the line under your name?

Well, I didn't really decide to launch the line under my name. So I met a chemist and I asked him what he did, and it was at Keel's Pharmacy and he told me he makes lipsticks on the side. I said, I've always wanted to make a lipstick that wasn't dry, wasn't grease. He didn't smell, it just looked like lips. He's like, I could do it for you. So he did and I after sending it back a couple times with changes, we had a deal that we would sell it and he would get seven fifty. I

So at that point, did you decide this is my business, I'm going out with it and he didn't fit into it anymore. I am very interested in the idea in kind of coming back to this question about putting yourself on the brand, because right now people defining themselves as brands is the name of the game, Like that's the.

I didn't know what a brand was.

To me.

A brand was Kleenex. Okay, I mean it's like that's a brand, Like all of a sudden, I'm a brand. But no, I mean I remember at the time learning that you can't this is not a normal business model. And this guy couldn't really understand that. So one day in an elevator, I smiled someone and I said what do you do? And she said, oh, I work at a cosmetics lab. I said, oh, I need someone to have a card and man a cosmetics in Long Island City and they made all the lipsticks. And that is

So the fact that you did launch it under your own lim and you said, now this is my business. How did your version of success? What was your version of success? At that point?

I paid the rent, you know, my husband, and I like, look, I started this business not by myself. I couldn't have done it without him. He's sitting here and I don't want to embarrass him, but I'm really smart. And this is why I'm smart. I make sure I have someone around me that knows what I don't, and so, you know, besides, you know, he's just the smartest guy I know. He's also he always encouraged me and supported me and would tell me things like, don't worry, we can do this.

I think a key piece, whether someone's launching a business, making a change, even staying the course, is really who their personal kitchen cabinet is has yours stayed the same or has it changed?

Oh? It's completely changed, completely changed. I mean, I you know, in this new brand, I don't have anyone from the old country.

But so you sold pretty quickly.

We sold I guess four and a half years after we launched. Yeah, yeah, wow, was right. We were thirty two years old. Thirty four years old. Again, I'm not good with numbers. I guess thirty four. But we had two kids only at the time, and yeah, we sold.

Now, I feel like there's so much like a big decision to go from founder to collaborator to of what kind of investors you bring in?

What was the decision for you?

Well, there wasn't those words back then. The decision was Leonard Lotter called. And anyone that knows Leonard in this room, he's the most wonderful human being. And when he called and said, you're beating us in the stores, because we were beating ste Latter in the department stores, he said, we can't beat you anymore, so we want to buy you. And you know, there was some issues with partners that

I want to hop in here to provide a little context at this point. It was nineteen ninety five and the language around business acquisition and non.

Compete clauses was new to Bobby.

And quite honestly not part of the mainstream conversation as it is today.

So did that.

Feel like your version of success at that point that you could focus on the part you liked and not the part you.

Didn't absolutely yes, yes, oh yes, And you know, and to be able to do things that you could not have imagined, you know, I mean, we sent our nieces and nephews to college and a few other people, so you got to do things that you know, that matter.

What was the core piece of the business that you really wanted to maintain for yourself and what areas were you able to grow in because of this partnership.

Well, I certainly am happy to never do hr, to never do finance, to never do operations, and you know, getting one thing to another place and where it goes. I don't care. I just I just like everything else. I like the product, I like the marketing, I like the messaging and the creative part of it. I care about those other things and I want to know about them, but I want someone else to deal with them.

When you were entering that partnership, you end up staying with the company.

Twenty two years.

That is really unheard of.

Yeah, when I hear that's what I hear, it's a long time.

At the time, when you entered into the partnership, did you think that you would just say, Okay, great, this is it. I'll just stay with this forever or did you think what did you think?

No, I don't remember how long our first contract was how many years, but four three, three years? So and we kept signing three years, two years, and I just I didn't know. And you know, Steve would always ask me, are you ready? And honestly, I went to work every day thinking I own the company, and I realized at the very end. I didn't because things changed for them too.

Yeah, I think that are better known parts of your story.

And this was the non compete? Right and how long it was?

Yes? We my husband, I'll never forget he called and he said, all right, we have a deal. He said, there's only one thing. They want you to sign, a twenty five year non compete. Okay. I counted on my fingers at the time because I was I thought I was thirty two. I looked thirty two, but I was thirty five. I said, I'm not going to want to work on them in my sixties. Who cares? Let them have it? So we signed and I didn't think I would want to work in my sixties. And I launched

The math Jones Road launched the month her non compete ended. One had to wonder if she had been waiting for this moment. Was there something specific that where you said, Okay, I'm done, because I do think this is, you know, like your big pivot, Like was there something that said that I'm done here?

Or it seemed like maybe it coincided at the end of the of the non compete.

No no. When I left, I hit four and a half years left on the non compete, which I bought a charm with an ampersand on it with the date ten dot twenty when my non compete would It was a really long four and a half years, let me tell you. But I you know, that's kind of kept me going. So so, you know, I just I don't know. I just I stayed because I cared and it was time to leave, probably for four years before I left. And I didn't leave because I'm someone that thinks I

You define yourself at the beginning as an entrepreneur. This is not your only venture, not by a long shot.

And I think when I lived in corporate America, I became an entrepreneur because I you know, I started a blog. I went to work at Yahoo to start a magazine. I just I need things to keep busy. And you know, you know, when you're on Instagram and you get to write like what you're feeling, sometimes I say I'm bored. Now I'm so busy, but I get bored. I'm just bored.

So is that how you thought of all these different ventures like does it come quickly and then you run after it?

Did you plan ahead? Like how did you think it?

I just things happened. Well, you know when I called Stephen and said I just you know, I'm just I left the company, he said, why don't we a hotel? I'm like, out of left field, Okay, I'm like, sounds like a good idea.

Okay, And so the George Hotel was born, a fun and unique adventure that allowed Bobby to explore her husband, Stephen Plofker's world of real estate development.

It was a project, and it was the first real development project that Stephen and I got to do together. We had no plan, we had no budget, we had no anything. It was you know, driving to home goods to see what they had, going like I'm like going on wayfair like figuring it out, going on restoration hardware outlet. And we furnished this hotel like really throwing stuff in the back of a truck that Steven's guys would pick up and we'd figure out where it goes. And it was a really fun project.

It has built up so much in Montclair.

You are a pillar in that community in so many ways, and the hotel has become a community. I mean sort of like the church, like a place where people can build, a place that is a part of a part of the community. How much has that been a factor in your thinking about your time, your bandwidth, and your identity.

Well, I mean Montclair is we moved to Montclair before we had kids. I love Montclair. It's the closest, you know, cool place to live outside of New York City. We also have a photo, TV and events studio called eighteen Label, and Steven's got a soccer bubble there. So we have a pretty big footprint in Montclair. And we're you know, some a bunch of our Montclair friends are here. A couple people left, but you know, we're still Montclair family.

You even moved your business there.

Yes, Jones Road is there. Why would I want to commute to New York City? But you know, I started working Mondays and Fridays from home when I was part of that big corporation. I didn't ask permission, it just made sense for me. And then I get to do things like drop my kids off at school, pick them up from school, go to the grocery store. I was the woman in the grocery store with a kid in my arms, on the phone with an editor talking about how fabulous you know, the new whatever it is, and

Well, I feel like you were thinking and executing on the way that people think about work now, but you were doing it fifteen and twenty years ago.

I'm telling yes, and it just makes sense because I would always make sure that I exercised because it made me a better person. It gave me more energy, you know. So, And honestly, even like I've always been someone that really kind of underdresses for events, I'm kind of known as you know, like I wore jeans to the White House with the blazer and nice jewelry. No one knew I was wearing jeans, and you know, once Obama did say to me, nice kicks.

You know, when I think about going through new ventures and talking with women as are thinking about them, I think the biggest value that I keep coming back to if it's a value, But evaluation is what do I want to keep?

Like, what am I driving towards? And what can I get rid of? As you've gone.

Through all these chapters, especially as you came through you're out of corporate, you're going through your four and a half years of your non compete thinking about your new business. What were those values that you were driving towards. What do I want to keep and what do I want to get rid of?

Well, it's easy to say what I got rid of. I got rid of corporate meetings that you prepare six or eight months and hire a lot of people to come in and give you their opinion, and then after the meeting you realize it was a waste of time. I don't do that, you know. I got rid of fancy parties, you know, clicking our heels together, spending a lot of money, and just started sending product to editors asking if they wanted it. So, you know, things change,

Latter when you were thinking about what your next chapter was going to be, was it always beauty?

Like? Did it have to be beauty? Do you always come back to that.

I did not think I was going to launch another makeup company when I left. I really had no idea. So I did the hotel, I worked on eighteen label, doing the marketing and social and then I had an opportunity to open just Bobby Department at Lord and Taylor because I called my dear friend Richard, he owned Lord and Taylor. He said, we need traffic in the store. Do you want to do this? I said, all right. So I called my neighbor Lynette, who came and helped me.

It's like in Harry Potter, the one shows you.

Yeah exactly, you know, I'm like, wow, that worked, okay, and then you did the next one. I'm like, okay, that worked. But you know, the interesting thing about Jones Road is nothing is what you would think it should be. It just it's different. I mean our CMO, who honestly, when he joined us, we quadrupled our business. He is our second son and he used to be a strength and conditioning coach and just learned all this masterful marketing and he has done a great job. And his wife

It could be there because you've had three podcasts so far. But one of the things that I loved listening to your episodes in a rows you have three different shows, three different podcasts, and I loved listening to the way you defined yourself at the beginning of each of them. In the first show, you said, I'm a makeup artist and I'm so many other things, Like you.

Were saying, like, don't define me that way. Your second show is about beauty, You're like, all right, I'm a makeup artist.

And then you're a third show, You're like, Okay, I'm a makeup artist, but what are.

The important things?

Yeah?

I kind of loved seeing your evolution over the last five years.

What do you think you've gotten out of them?

I don't like to do the same thing once I've done it, I want to do something differently. But I love people's stories because everyone is a story. Like not everyone you meet someone and you think, oh, that's what they are. Everybody comes from something, and everyone's got a story, and I find it really interesting. And the more you get to share these stories, the more other women and other people get to learn and say, ah, I never thought of that. Wow, I bet I could do that too.

How are you defining success now with Jones Road? Like? Is it world domination?

I had to find for you before this thing that I wanted to interview you because you had world domination in beauty and now have a different brand.

Do you see it that way?

I don't need to even think about it that way. Been there, done that. I've gotten some of the most incredible awards, you know, it's amazing, and I keep thinking there's nothing else, and something comes up. So I mean, what is success for me? Honestly, success is happiness, you know. And yes, I'm happy. I love what I'm doing. It's what I choose to do. I don't golf, I don't play tennis, I don't garden. I find work in business really interesting, especially if you could do it, you know,

So this has been so wonderful.

I could ask you one hundred more questions, but unfortunately for me, we do have to end. So I have one final question for you, which is what is something that along the way, at the time you thought it was such a negative alow. You thought, I'm never going to get myself out of this, and now in retrospect, you look back and you realize that it really launched you.

I mean honestly, when I stopped working for S. D. Lauter and Bobby Brown, I mean, that was a it was a tough time. It was it was a loss, and it was you know, I had a mourn this company that I built, and you know it was hard. You know, I didn't I couldn't speak to anyone for a couple months, and that was really hard. And I had to deal with myself, right. I was so busy with things and you know, I had things on my calendar for years and all of a sudden I had nothing,

No, no, well do you think you'll pivot again?

I would surely think so. I mean, I don't know. I mean I'm sixty six and I don't know what I'm going to be doing when I'm eighty six or ninety six. But I plan on always doing something interest, something interesting. Whether I could do it and make money. Yeah, yeah, Bobby, Thank.

You so thank you for joining us.

Thank you to the church for hosting us. Thank thank you so much.

Bobby still lives in Montclair, New Jersey, where Jones Road is headquartered. She doesn't seem to have any plans of slowing down, and in fact opened another Jones Road brick and mortar store in the Hamptons this summer. To learn more about Bobby and Jones Road Beauty, you can find her on Instagram at just Bobby Brown dot com and

Talk to you next week.

She Pivots is hosted by me Emily Tish Sussman, produced by Emily eda Veloshik, with sound editing and mixing from Nina Pollock and research and planning from Christine Dickinson and Hannah Cousins.

I endorse Che Pivots.