Triumphed Over Adversity
Shai Eisenman, founder and CEO of Bubble, a skin care brand that took off on TikTok and now sells in
Walmart: “When I got my first noes, it was devastating. But then you get to a certain place. A no just means that that’s not the right fit.”
Sasha Plavsic, founder and chief creative officer of Ilia Beauty, a clean makeup com
pany: “When you’re in an uncomfortable situation, you have to make decisions. We moved our sales operation online. We moved our field teams to social media and customer service. We bought ads. We stepped on the gas.” Alexandra Fennell, co-founder of Attn:Grace, a line of products for bladder leaks that raised $2 million in 2020: “What was hardest? Trying to juggle it all. We were fundraising recently and our 5-yearold came into my office and freaked out on camera. There were hundreds of moments like that.”
Melissa Ben-Ishay, founder and CEO of cupcake company
Baked by Melissa: “I never thought I wanted to be CEO of my company. When Covid hit, no one could better lead our company than me.” Jane Root, founder and CEO of documentary company Nutopia: “The hardest thing was being a global company when nobody can meet. We were in six or seven time zones at any one time. You just do it.”
Cate Luzio, founder and CEO of Luminary, a collaboration hub for women: “We expanded events while going fully online. Our membership has grown to more than 30 countries.”
Jennifer Liao, cofounder of Xiao Chi Jie restaurant-turned
DTC business: “To keep our people employed, we started shipping frozen soup dumplings. We opened six warehouses to reach nationwide, and revenue is up four times.”
Alexandra McManus, co-founder and CEO of Eyrus, a constructionmanagement software
maker: “We pivoted to offer Covid safety tools and landed our biggest accounts. Revenue grew by more than four times.” Alix Peabody, founder and CEO of canned wine company Bev: “We call June 2020 ‘the June of Doom.’ California fires? There go our grapes. We had to buy juice and ferment it ourselves. We called every aluminum supplier we could. But managing the supply chain is a fun puzzle, if you think about it that way. Otherwise, you’ll go insane.”
Sarah RundleMcKinney, co-founder of Truffle Shuffle, a food seller that hosts online cooking classes: “Whole Foods paused our launch and restaurants canceled orders. We had $20,000 worth of perishables. So we started online cooking classes to use the products, and the company grew dramatically.”
Amy Errett, founder and CEO of Madison Reed, which makes at-home hair color free of harsh chemi
cals: “In March 2020, we had to close all 12 locations. We shifted all 100 employees to customer service. I think we bought every Google Chromebook at Best Buy and trained everybody within a week.”
Ashley Harris, cofounder and CEO of LoveBug Probiotics, whose products support immune
health: “Our biggest challenge has been staying in stock. We had to put childproof caps on adult bottles because that’s all we could get. I helped label boxes for hours and hours.”
Milana Rabkin Lewis, co-founder and CEO of Stem, a platform to help independent artists get paid for
music: “We went through hard challenges before Covid hit. Then we announced Scale, our $100 million capital advance facility for artists. Within a week, we had $60 million in requests for advances.”
Dawn Dickson
Akpoghene, founder and CEO of Popcom, a maker of contactless vending machines: “I spent years developing a relationship with a manufacturing partner in Hong Kong. In a month, everything was uncertain. I had to move manufacturing to Connecticut immediately. You have to be OK with changing everything.” Ashley Merrill, founder and CEO of sleepwear retailer Lunya: “We were reminded we can’t be a one-trick pony. You can’t get all your manufacturing from one place, all your logistics through one method, or all your customers through one avenue. There is no one way to do anything—the only way is a diversified business.”
Ruzwana Bashir, co-founder and CEO of Peek, which offers booking software for experience-based
travel: “Bookings, overnight, dropped to zero. We work with small travel businesses, and they were hurting even more. We helped them fast-track PPP loans, and helped people pivot to virtual experiences.”
Jennifer Martin, co-founder of Pipsnacks, maker of snacks using heirloom
corn: “Being an innovator or a disrupter means redefining failure. Much of our success came from just not stopping. It’s all learning.” Teresa Tsou, cofounder of Pipsnacks: “We stuck to our guns with our strategy even though we were getting pressure from our investor to pull back on SKUs because they saw the big players do that. We positioned our products as a cleaner and nostalgic snack, which helped spike our sales.”