HOW TO BUILD A BEAUTY EMPIRE
From “shampoo girl” to Dermalogica founder, Jane Wurwand, shares the inner game to creating a successful beauty brand
1PAY ATTENTION; YOUR SURROUNDINGS INFORM YOUR WORK: “If you are not paying attention to everything outside your industry, you become myopic. Our industry is in the treatment room. It’s pretty small so if you just keep looking there you’re missing what’s happening outside. Our role at Dermalogica was always to be looking out to make sure the ship is sailing in the right direction. We have to make sure we are looking out, whether its tech or retail. We have to constantly keep looking around so that we can keep our industry informed.
2START SOMEWHERE, EVEN IF IT’S SMALL: “I got my first job at age 13 in a salon because it was the only place that would hire you illegally. You had to be 15and-a-half to work but salons never paid attention to the rules. As long as I was never seen, I could do the laundry, make teas and coffees and get the stylists lunch and I fell in love with the industry. When I was 15-and-a-half, I got promoted to shampoo girl. I eventually studied skincare, started working in the industry, immigrated to SA and got my teaching credentials.”
3FIND THE GAP: “The first thing that struck me is why are there no skincare salons? It was all hair. The skincare salons were all in Beverly Hills — so super posh and all owned by Europeans. So I started thinking — why are there no American salons? So I’d go for interviews as a skin therapist and realised my European accent is in my favour. Then they ask – ’do you have any questions?’. I said, ’I do. I’m just curious, all the salons are European.’ And they said, ’well that’s easy, the training is shocking in America – there’s no training for beauty therapists’. So the big opportunity was training and I have a teaching credential.”
4FAILURE IS PART OF THE JOURNEY: “I think a classic entrepreneurial quality is optimism and enthusiasm even in the face of disaster. If you’re a natural entrepreneur, it’s hard to think of things you would do differently or things that were terrible, because you think back and say that was really bad but I learnt from that.”
5SEEK MENTORSHIP BUT BE SPECIFIC IN YOUR APPROACH: “Do I mentor people? Well firstly, I am part of UCLA. I’m on the board of the entrepreneurship school and part of our responsibility is to mentor students.”
6THE INDUSTRY IS FULL OF COMPETITION AND INEQUALITY – FIND YOUR NICHE: “I refuse to let anyone marginalise me. If somebody tries, I don’t allow it. If somebody makes a comment that’s discriminatory, I make them own it. But that’s a personal way, not everyone is like that but no matter who you are, you have to be your fully authentic self.”