Dr. Zahir Dossa, CEO of Function of Beauty | MIT Grad Disrupting Beauty Industry

Welcome to the Success Story Podcast. I'm your host, Scott Clary. On this podcast, I have candid interviews with execs, celebrities, politicians, and other notable figures, all who have achieved success through both wins and losses, to learn more about their life, their ideas, and their insights. I sit down with leaders and mentors and unpack their story to help pass those lessons onto others through both experiences and tactical strategy for business professionals, entrepreneurs, and everyone in between. With a further ado, another episode of the Success Story Podcast. Today we're sitting down with Dr. Zahir Dosa. He's a graduate of MIT, earning two degrees in computer science and management, as well as a PhD in sustainability. After graduating, he received a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center of Sustainability at the IMD Business School in Switzerland, where he co-authored a book on sustainable business models. The year's a research focus on the role of internet-based technologies, transform value chains, which eventually led him to found function of beauty, and he's currently the co-founder CEO of Function of Beauty, which is what he's working on right now. Thank you for joining me. Excited to chat, figure a little bit more of Function of Beauty, and learn a little bit more about you. Hey, it's a lot, Scott. Yeah, so walk us through very, very brief background, but that's the website version. What's your story? Yeah, I was always interested in entrepreneurship, but I was also interested in computer science. I always imagined a world where I'd be able to marry those two. I wanted to go to MIT for as long as I can remember, and just because it had great entrepreneurship and computer science programs. When I got there, I ended up becoming more and more interested with e-commerce and direct to consumer brands and ended up staying on board for, as you saw, a master's in Ph.D. really focusing on value chains, sustainable business models, and how e-commerce could become ideally a better value proposition and shopping experience than going to a physical store. So during the times of COVID-19, that's very true. And I'm actually very, I was thinking about it. If this had happened 15 years ago, what would have happened in a world where we're able to do so much online with that spanking, whether that's shopping for groceries, or liquor, or products from Amazon, or Skype, zoom, all of these things that make it really easy to connect. I've always been really obsessed and interested in that world, and think that's where things are moving, but have been especially appreciative of it as of late. So yeah. So I have a question. You're a very, okay, so you're looking at sustainability, but you're also very, I guess, entrepreneur oriented. A lot of you mentioned e-commerce, and all these other internet-based businesses. How did this come to? Was there other things that you've tried before that led to function of beauty, or how did function of beauty, which is something that, you know, when I think of the internet, you know, really gung-ho entrepreneurs that I know, I don't know a lot of them that go into making beauty products and decide that that's their widget. So I'm curious, like, what led you to where we're at now? Sure. So sustainability has always been a very big topic that goes beyond environment on its own, right? So I looked at social sustainability, economic sustainability, and it really came down to efficiency and making sure value was being delivered to the most important players in a value chain. And so a lot of my entry into beauty was actually realizing that beauty generally was a pretty inefficient industry. You had a lot of middlemen. You had a very high price for the end products, but very low cost of goods. And so there was a lot of value being taken out by all these middle players in a value chain. And I thought e-commerce and beauty online basically would be a really great way of eliminating middlemen being able to make sure that a lot of consumers were able to get higher value proposition products at more affordable prices. And so that's kind of what led me into a company called the Argan tree. So it was a personal care line, online sole champion conditioner, body-washed body lotion, and Argan oil syrup with this idea of, okay, can we get Argan oil that's being essentially greeting it directly from a cooperative in Morocco, and then sell it directly to consumers online. And in doing so, we were able to give a higher amount of revenues to producers, but then also get very fair price products to consumers, just because there's no other middlemen there. And so that went reasonably well. But it seemed like for us to really expand, we would have had to go into whole foods, sprouts, and we're negotiating national contracts. And that's when I took a step back and was like, okay, maybe my value proposition isn't strong enough if I'd have to start relying on a non-ecommerce way to really build this business. And so I have asking a bunch of customers, what would it take to make this product perfect? And everyone said something very, very different. And that's when the aha moment happened for function, where I realized what happens if we're able to individually make products for customers. And the only real way to do that is by abusing a ton of technology into a sector that is pretty old school. There hasn't been too many innovations in beauty and personal care for a very, very long time. And so what would it look like for us to be able to come up with this online, personalized beauty company. And so that's how function of beauty started. And at the time there were no personalized beauty companies, this ability to individually fill a bottle is I think what made us so unique and special from an engineering perspective. And hence why one of my other co-founders came from MIT and we're best friends at MIT and continue to stay in touch afterwards. But the other half of it was how do you actually develop a really strong brand around these products where we're able to celebrate people's uniqueness and individuality for the first time in beauty. And so I went into it with a shave head. I now have a very, very long head of hair as you can see. But it wasn't necessarily hair care that really attracted me personally. But in a world where I saw a huge problem and had the perfect team to actually solve it, it was just too tempting to not do it. And then I suddenly got insanely passionate about beauty, personal care, you know, democratizing beauty, individual ideals of uniqueness and how to create a really strong brand that's able to create the very best products in the market. I actually, what I wanted to, and this is I introduced you, but I didn't introduce function of beauty. So I personally haven't used the brand before. So I'm going to say this for people like me even though I'm sure there's a target demo that definitely does know function of beauty. So customizable hair care brand that allows you to create shampoo's conditioner styling products on your individual hair types, hair goals, aesthetic performance, excuse me, including color fragrance. So that's obviously a hugely disruptive concept in my opinion, even though coming from the outside in where I don't have like the same knowledge of obviously of personal hygiene, hair care products that you know, you would have or probably some of your customers have. I can still see how that could be like a huge disruptor because obviously when I think about beauty industry, I think that there's still very slim margins on average and it's very hard probably because of all those middlemen. So if you figure out the supply chain issue, plus you figure out like a disruptive product and concept like a novel concept, that's essentially what you're doing. So it's like almost like a two-pronged attack to a relatively busy space. Absolutely. It's a huge industry as you pointed out. It seems to be a very big problem. We were doing a bunch of just questionnaires, studies, et cetera, just to figure out, do we really need to personalize this? And the average woman will have about four hair goals. So imagine going to a shelf and being able to find those specific four in a bottle of shampoo and it doesn't exist, right? You might find a deep conditioning shampoo or a dandruff shampoo, but to yet all four specific hair goals that you want. And then for your specific hair is, I mean, it's impossible to find right now. And so this ability to individually fill a bottle with the unique formulation is super special. I mean, we now have the ability to put one of 54 trillion different formulations into a bottle, which is to see far more than the people on earth, but it just gives you an idea of just what the actual range of formulations is. And so on the one hand, we're able to get a perfect product to customer for the first time in this space. But the other cool half of that is as their hair care routines change, as seasons change, as the preferences change, they're able to stick with the same brand and company along that entire journey. And so rather than finding another shampoo and conditioner that works and all the experimentation that goes around it, you're able to just focus on just entering anything you need into our online portal essentially and getting another personalized shampoo that's now perfect for you. And as an entrepreneur and the founder, like I'm sure there's a reason why most companies don't do this and the one I can think of is expensive. It's expensive to customize. So is it because that you had this really strong group of individuals that knew how to do it that could sort of alleviate some of those costs when you start. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think the one way to lower cost right is infusing technology into a problem. So this is the first time that we have MIT engineers, Canadian nuclear submarine officers, you know, people from Amazon, a bunch of different industries actually tackling the technology part of the problems. I think that's the first half. So getting the very perfect set of people to solve the technology of this, to be able to automatically fill a bottle, lightening fast and get it directly to a consumer. So I think that's the first half of it is definitely figuring out the operations and whatnot. And then I think the second half is creating a strong brand that people are able to identify with and resonate with, right? You know, it'd be really difficult for an existing shampoo company to subtly offer this and come across as true, right? I think a lot of people would see it as very inauthentic because subtly you can sell it for somebody. Exactly. And you've been selling these, you know, mass-produced shampoos where you bucket people into various categories. And now you're subtly saying that actually all that's fake or more likely than not, you know, only that's real for certain people of the population. But for other people of the population, you are unique, you are especially you deserve your unique formulation. And so I think that's the other half is how do you create a really strong brand around personalization to not only make it very clear this is something you need, but also make it something you want. And I think that's where the other half of the brand has really come to life. And so if you go online, you know, I'm obviously very proud of the online flow since that was originally my baby that I coated up and designed. And now we have many other people that work on it. But this idea of being able to go through a very simple quiz to find out exactly what you need. But then having fun with it, you know, what's the fragrance you want, what's the color of the formulation since our bottles are transparent. What's the name you want us to put on the bottle? We actually names on bottles just so it's, you know, it's a function of Scott or whatever it may be. And I think all of that ended up making us a very social forward brand where for the first time you're having people snapping pictures of their shampoo and conditioner bottles and posting it on Instagram, which is, which is crazy. But it's an hurt of, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, man. But it's like, you know, would you ever do that with head and shoulders? No, they don't or just pick your brand, like, you know, you probably would not unless it did something crazy for your hair. And even then, like, could you really attribute it to, you know, mass produced formulation? And so I think that's what helped us grow this huge social brand in the modern age. And was a brand that we were able to deliver a really awesome promise. So make a crazy promise that, you know, you are unique and we will make your unique formulation. But then be able to deliver on it very, very effectively. And speak about some of that, like, because I know that the user generated content, it makes a ton of sense, right? Like, you know, you're having people take pictures, you're posting them on Instagram. Was that done purposefully or was that done just by accident when you realize that people love the product so much, they want to sort of evangelize it? Yeah, I mean, in the earliest days, it was, it felt like mad. We were a selling a product to be any entrepreneur to come up with an idea and actually sell it. It really, really, really does feel like magic. And I remember I used to get every single word of confirmation directly to my email. I'm like, go find a Josh. I look a little sound alert associated with it, but it was cool to see people purchase it. And then suddenly we started seeing people taking pictures of it and posting it. And this is the age where Instagram was very, very young. And so mainly on Facebook that people were posting it, but, you know, based on that learning, we realized what we had that we actually ended up re-branding it. So if you look at very early pictures, you'll see, you know, muted spa colors. This very salon-esque brand. But what we saw was there's a slight disconnect between that visual identity system that we created and what our actual customers were loving most about it. And we realized, you know, on the one hand, we do want to be considered. We do want to be effective. But on the other, we want to be loud, fun and personable as well. And so now you can see the fragrances we've come out with. I'll have fun puns. We have very bright and loud colors. We ended up increasing the size of people's names on bottles. That's how we have a vertical logo actually. So it's a function of Scott, but rather than doing it horizontally, where it would appear very, very small, we're able to put it on the vertical side of the bottle. Small things, but they add up. Yeah, I can see that. Absolutely. And so I think that I think it was, you know, this conversation with our customers with realizing, okay, this is what we, what they want. We are the one brand that caters exactly to what customers want. So how do we keep going down that direction? And I think that's how we ended up, you know, having this social following that we currently have in the super high engagement. So in hair care, we are, I think it's about three times greater engagement in the next hair care company of any size in terms of engagements. But, you know, you can look at the big online DDC players, and we'll always be in the top three in terms of engagement. And, you know, many of them are bigger than us, but we are quickly growing as you can see. And that's another reason to obviously be proud to hang your head on. No, I think that there's a lot of lessons. I always, I always love speaking to people at disrupt industries. And I think that what I think, you know, it's safe to say, I don't like to throw that word around loosely because disruption is so worth this use quite often now. But I think that you can safely say that what you're doing is, is very much disrupting an industry. So I think that the congratulations, that's very impressive. The way that you thought it through and the way you've iterated and what you've built it out, I think it's very impressive. And speaking through it now, a lot of it does make sense like the end result. Because when I first looked you up when we were setting this up, I saw 630 K people on it. And I'm like, what, who cares about a hair product? Like an alternative exactly what they're my mind. But that's like, you know, when you ask a question like that, that's a great opportunity to disrupt when you have like, who cares about a hair product? I guess the, then the entrepreneurs, like, well, nobody. So how do I make them care? And I think that's kind of what you're tapping into. Now do you think, you know, I don't think there's a ton of people that are disrupting hair care in particular yet outside of, you know, what you're doing. I think it's a very legacy industry. But what are some of the lessons that you think I guess industries could learn or entrepreneurs could learn that could be repeatable from your successes that they could apply to other industries that they're knowledgeable about that would help them? Because you mentioned a few, but I'd still, if you have some ideas like like industry, agnostic lessons, they can pull out of it that they can go and disrupt whatever they're in right now. Yeah, sure. So I think the first is actually something I learned Bill Gates at some point came to speak at MIT. And there was a few students that received a scholarship and I was one of them. And so we actually got to talk to Bill Gates separately in a, in a size room before everything had started. And I remember someone asked him the question, you know, yeah, you did Microsoft and all of that. But what's the biggest lesson you would give to any of us, of course, the amount of starting a company. And he had an interesting insight. It was basically that if you look at success rates, it's almost of entrepreneurs or of companies. It's almost independent of the size of the problem. And so, you know, whether you're going to start a mom and pop restaurant or a huge software company, you're going to have actually similar rates of success and failure. And so, you know, the first big lesson I learned from that was to solve the biggest problem in in an industry. If you're likely to have success or failure is is the same, no matter what size of the problem. Just make sure that you're solving a problem that's big enough to keep you motivated. And then obviously have a huge tailwind of impacts that you're able to, to double down on. So that's the very first lesson I would, I would give, you know, when it came to function of beauty, I thought personalized beauty was the biggest problem in this industry. All you had seen in the last 30 years was either here's a new cool ingredient or here's a new pretty person that's going to support and evangelize a product. But, you know, no one's beauty last forever and those role models change and similar is always going to be a new and latest ingredient. But there wasn't any real innovation. And so I thought, you know, in a world where there was no innovation in the sector, what is the very biggest problem that consumers are facing? And so, I think that's the first lesson I would give or at least the first lesson I learned that seems reproducible is focus on the biggest problem in the industry that you're you're really interested in with because all other things are going to be equal. And it's, you know, I've been doing this for five and a half years if I had focused too small and originally I had the archantry. But it was cool. But again, it was, it was some slight disruption. Nothing too crazy. In fact, you know, you're right, I don't think it would be disruptive at all. And so it wasn't a big enough problem for me to actually rally people around or really focus on and then make big. And so I think that's the first lesson that I learned with function of beauty. Thank you. The second big lesson that I like to share and I guess have done so repeatedly is just do it with the best team in the world. I think it's becoming insanely competitive world. And the more globalized we make it, the more entrance there are going to be in any single industry. So even if you come up with the best solution, if you don't have the very best team working on it, then there is going to be someone else that does it better, does it bigger, etc. And I think that's what, you know, we did really, really well. I think if you looked at me, Josh and me and the three co-founders and then all the supporting cast we built around us, I think we are the very best people in the world to start an online personalized beauty company or even an online beauty company, even if it wasn't personalized. You know, it's a testament today. We are the biggest online haircare company in North America, probably the world, depending on how you measure it. And that's personalized or not. And even within our own sector, there's a lot of small copycats and competitors that come around. But I can honestly say we have the very best team and I'm not worried at all about them. And so as a result of that, they're able to help build this vision of personalized beauty or whatnot. But we're always able to stay at the forefront and remain the pioneer and remain the biggest by far just because we have the very best team working on the problem. And so I think that's the second piece of the puzzle is make sure you solve the biggest problem, but with the very best team. One thing that you mentioned that I really appreciate you mentioning is when you first went, and by the way, thank you. That was also a good point. I mean, the fresh over that was also a good point because I had something on my mind and I sometimes I jump into the thought too quickly. So you mentioned that when you first were going to beauty, it wasn't like, it wasn't a passion of yours. And I have something like I have, I'm going somewhere with this. But then over the course of, you know, building up the business, you were, you became very passionate about it. Now, I think that that, and I want your opinion on this because I think a lot of entrepreneurs just jump into something that they're passionate about. And it may not work out the way they want. And then they get this, you know, this, this hardened and they give up or whatnot. Now, you understood how to solve a problem agnostically of what an industry was. You knew what your core values and your strengths were and you applied that to something and it started working and you started building a passion. So can you speak to what is an important driver or what is an important metric to measure yourself by when you're starting something that may not always be in an industry that you are incredibly passionate about. But there is an awesome opportunity for you to succeed because I think that that was a really good point. And I want to sort of highlight that. Yeah. So I think, you know, some people are drawn to industries. Others are drawn to the actual solution that comes from it. And so I think you can be one of two people, right? So I could have easily been very passionate about care care. And probably had a very, very similar success path I would actually argue. So I think that's one and I think those people end up really focusing on industry. So all their ideas will happen within this one industry that they're super passionate about. I think the other side of people are people who are very, very passionate about problem solving and then very passionate about very specific things that could apply to any industries. I am extremely passionate about e-commerce. I'm extremely passionate about direct consumer. I'm extremely passionate about brand and product, something you feel, something you touch. And so, you know, I think I think you do need to have a passion in whatever you do. And I say that just because you are going to go through so many adversities, you're going to go through so many failures, the only thing that keeps you going at night and keeping the hustle alive going through all of that is if you do have a passion for what you're doing. So I think maybe that's the nuance. There is you don't necessarily need to be passionate about industry, but you will always end up doing something you were passionate about in some way, shape, or form just because I think it's too hard to go through all those tough times without being passionate at all. But I do think that there is a strong segment of society that feels that they are not passionate about specific industry or what not. And to those people, I would say, well, what are you passionate about? Because there is going to be something you're passionate about that then ends up becoming applicable to a whole host of different industries. And then you're going to have to figure out, okay, how do I choose, you know, where to apply my passion here? And that was the case for me where, you know, looking at all the industries that there were, I was really passionate about how do you optimize and build a sustainable and strong value chain. And I looked at a very simple metric, I was like, what's the final sale price of a good? And then how much did it actually cost to produce that good? And whatever had a high multiple was what I was really passionate about solving it. How can I make this a lot more efficient? And, you know, one was coffee. If you look at how much a roasted bag of beans, cells were even crazier. If you look at what the actual cost behind the stuff that goes into your Starbucks, whatever macchiato, you'll see a crazy high multiple. But you'll also see that crazy high multiple and beauty as well. And being just seemed like something I, I just ended up becoming a lot more crunchy. And I think that's because I was passionate about brand products online. All the things that I thought I could better impact in the in the beauty industry. And one other thing that I noticed is you started this with co-founders. Now was that done purposefully or what are your thoughts on starting and starting a company? But and also why did you work with co-founders and what value, how do they compliment you? Yeah, sure. And that comes with that second lesson where it's make sure you solve the biggest problem with the very best team. So me on my own could not do everything at folks in the beauty. And even the core principles that we are trying to achieve, I just I am not that good, right? Like I'm really good at web design, web programming, business strategy marketing, you know, that side of the house. When it comes to automatically putting things in bottles, that's not my my forte. Operations and figuring out how do you create various lines to be able to actually automatically fill bottles, package them, et cetera. That's not my forte. But I knew that the automatic fulfillment of this promise was necessary. Otherwise, we never achieve the scale to make any use headwinds or any big splats in the industry. And that's where I chose Josh. Josh was one of my best friends in my team, but he is phenomenal at that. When it comes to this intersection between automation, engineering, and then operations, there's no one better in the world than Joshua Majeski. And so he was essentially told my plan, he laughed about it for the first bit and then thought about it and, you know, was like, okay, I just sounds like actually a really good idea. Let's let's do it. And then the other person was here. At the end of the day, you know, I could sell a product. Josh could automatically fill about how the hefty we know what to fill each product with. How do we think about what questions to ask customers on this hair quiz? And that's where he came in. She is a best-in-class formulation chemist and someone who instantaneously got the idea and value proposition. So now, if I interview formulation chemists, they get it. They've seen function of beauty. They understand how it all works. When we first started, there's no personalized beauty. Anything, no personalized skincare, no personalized hair care, you know, whatever it may be. And so to have a co-founder who truly understood, here's the value proposition. And here's, I'm actually going to achieve it from a formulation standpoint, was critical. And so I don't think we could have started function of beauty with two of us, much less one of us. And so I think that's the first big thing is making sure you really do have the very best team. I do think that there's a third lesson that I learned along the way. And I learned this the hard way, which was it's in a book called Scaling Up. And one of the interesting things they say is for the first, you know, few years, I don't know, say two to three years in a company. The company focuses a lot more on growth than it should, and a lot less on people than it should. And so basically you're really focusing on growth for the first two to three years. When in fact, you should really be focused on people. And I realized the second I started focusing on people suddenly, you had this exponential increase in the growth of function. And so I think the the early lesson is investing people and growth will follow versus the other way around. I think the second half of that lesson, though, is you flip it after, you know, this this initial two to three year mark, where you end up focusing a lot more on people for the the second half of what you'd call a startup, when what you should be focusing on is growth. And that I think I learned a little bit quicker. And it's it's really easy to get caught up because you'll end up having cultural issues at your company. You really want to build a strong culture and you'll let any little thing get to you, but you'll be so focused on hiring the right people or even just getting the best people or the people within your company to to mobilize or whatnot. When you really do need to be focused on how do you grow the heck out of this thing? And you know, I have to end up having to make some personal changes just because it was like people were just not able to grow this company the way it should in the last, you know, a couple of years. And as a result, we've been able like triple every every year since then, which is especially hard when you reach a certain size. I mean, you're talking about the biggest online haircare company that's, you know, doubling or tripling in size every single year. That's not an easy feat, but that is where the focus area has to be. And it's interesting. The second you start focusing on growth, the people just calm. People internally get better and better because they get more excited about the company their building. But then you just have so many people who are applying for various positions, and you just get such a high caliber of applicants. And so I think that's, you know, the third lesson is focus on people when you should and focus on growth when you should. And don't, don't flip the two at the wrong stage of the company. That's very good. And I see that a lot. When I see, when I see younger entrepreneurs that death, I think most everybody falls into the trap of hiring the cheapest because that's where you can afford. And that's what you, you want to, you want to bring in bodies to help you do whatever task, but it's not the, it's not going to get you to where you need to be. And it's not going to be people that are going to, you know, evangelize the company. It's not going to be people that are going to take the company to the next level. It's not going to be people that are going to be putting in the hour, like after work hours for the company. I know I've read, I can't remember. I think it could have been, it could have been there was a startup story about buffer, like the, the auto scheduling tool for, for social media. And I just, it may not have been buffer. But I just remember the CEO saying, if you're hiring somebody at a startup level and they're asking about benefits and vacation, it's like, just don't hire them. Like, like, and it's, it's, it's, it's, it's good because I get it. Some people need that. And a lot of people need that. And that's all the standard benefits and, you know, the vacation and the 37.5 hour week. That's, that's really good. That's how we keep, you know, work life balance. But at the same time, there's a lot of really crazy people that will go into a startup and just give it. They're all and they'll come out on top. And that's kind of like that person you need, like that person that isn't concerned with like the small things. It's, it's almost like, well, it's like an entrepreneur that isn't the CEO within a company. So I guess an entrepreneur or whatever you want to call it, but that's a, that's a really good lesson. I think, I don't think a lot of people learn that and don't much, much later, you know, after they failed or whatnot. So that's really, really good. Thank you for the degree. Yeah. What's, so what, what's the next function of beauty? You're growing at, you know, three X year over year. That's pretty impressive. That seems silly to ask what's next. You're going to be like, well, keep growing. But is there anything, anything in particular that you're, you're trying to achieve as you, as you keep keep going? Yeah. So the answer is keep growing. But there are, there are four different ways that we really see growth, right? And, and why grow? That's always a big question. But for us, we thought that personalization deserves to be a norm in this industry, not a niche. And so if we do not keep growing, keep succeeding, then personalization will be known as just a niche or even a failure in this industry. We have a ton of eyes looking at us to see, okay, how big is this thing really? How big is online? And how big is personalized beauty? And so to us, the four different areas that we think we want to continue growing to demonstrate that, one is, one is a category expansion, right? So how do we think about, how do we think about beauty in general? I think we ended up starting with personalized air care, but we never really decided that, you know, functionality should just be a lot of hair. It's called function of beauty for reasons. So I think category expansion is, is one big area of growth. So you can imagine other categories with its body, skin, wherever else are things that we're actively looking at. The second is geographical. So how can we sell to more and more markets? We're now in about 45 countries and that number keeps increasing. So obviously start with the US, quickly add a Canada, and then the UK and Australia, but we decided, hey, look, we had so much demand from all these other countries. We found an easy way to unlock it. You know, how do we make sure that we are able to deliver this brand proposition across the world, not just in in some small corner office? I think that's the second big area is international. The third area is, is a channel, right? So right now we are just online on our website, but there are ways that you could mix that with in person. So whether that's working with salons, whether that's trying to figure out, doing our own stores or whatever it may be, but how do we get people to experience and interact with the brand more than just on functionabuty.com? So I think that's the third area. And the fourth is, how do we leverage this model, this personalization platform to other players? So can we help other industries out? Can we end up becoming a resource? Can we help people manufacture and fulfill personalized products in non-competing industries? And so I think that's the fourth is how do we actually grow the actual idea of personalization in this platform? So I think those are the four different things now. What order do we do that is something that's obviously difficult to convocate because right now we've had the same problem that we've had for the first five and a half years, which is we cannot keep up with demand. So to this date, we have always had to limit how much marketing dollars we can spend, limit how much, you know, organic pushes we can really make. Whatever it may be, just because it's, you know, the operational intensity behind this cannot be overstayed. I mean, it is crazy. But for five and a half years, you know, even with that growth rate, we are still nowhere close to finally being able to meet demand and just let marketing, you know, run wild. And so, you know, in a world where we have to constantly make trade-offs and decide, okay, what should we pursue? What should we delay? You know, that's what has kept us just focusing on hair care at least for off for five and a half years. One thing that I want to ask a couple questions just to sort of tee this off and ask a couple questions about like, you know, your insights on what you've experienced over the course of your life that I like to do at the end of every segment before I do that. You mentioned something about putting this into stores or salons or whatnot. Have you thought through how to maintain, and I don't want to like, you know, go into your executive team, white boarding sessions, which I'm sure you probably have this conversation a lot, but high level, how do you maintain that personalization? The second, you put it into a traditional outlet. And I'm curious if you thought through that. Yes, so what we really have been looking at is one of the hybrid approaches, right? So if you go to a salon, you know, how do you actually achieve a personalized formulation? So well, we could have a login or a portal for stylists to use and they can actually just go through the online biz with a customer or potential customer to get their personalized formulation. So that would be the idea for salons. When we send stores, we originally have been thinking about our own stores where we can somehow try to get the crazy big automation that we have in a very small scale so that people can actually watch their products being made in front of them. Now, again, in a world where we can't keep up with the man and it's hard enough to do this at a huge scale. Can we do this at a small scale? And so I think those would be the two things. What's your point? You know, personalization has to be at the key of it. Otherwise, we just dilute our brand and become like any other. And so I think you're absolutely correct that we want to make sure that we hold those those tenants very close to us. Very good. Okay. So back to back to Zahir, you know, MIT grad turned entrepreneur. What is a life lesson that you would tell your younger self that would help you get to where you are a little bit quicker? Can I ask a good question? I find myself so insanely lucky to have gone down this path. I think through all the stimuli and impetus is that led me to here. I'm so shocked. It's so fortunate to be doing this. I mean, you've seen the resume. You've seen the story. It is really crazy to go from, you know, Hamilton, Ontario, let's just say I was born to MIT and then to doing, you know, function of beauty. I think that's, there are a lot of really crazy things that happen to lead me down this path. And so if anything, I would tell my younger self to make sure that I kept doing the things that I did. And I remember, you know, my best friend, Chris Huggins, we were deciding whether to, whether or not to go to this school 11th and for 11th and 12th grade. It was like a boarding school, magnet school program where we'd live away from home. And he decided to put his fate on flipping a coin. And the coin flipped to basically stay the course, stay in high school. I'd already decided I'm definitely going. But he decided to go just because it was, he was just kind of bummed by the output of that coin flip. But I think the deep down thing was, if you can ever make a change and you're excited about it, just do it. I think at the end of the day, the coolest stories and you can look at any entrepreneur. But the things that make entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, are they take a weird, less traveled path, but they almost chase a cool story or changes in life. And I think that's what has been so critical to me being able to now be, you know, at the forefront of a very, very successful company is just being able to have had all these random opportunities that I decided to chase. And you know, I thought it would make for a more interesting life. And evidently, it's not, it's not without its stresses, its turmoil. I mean, there are a lot of, you know, whatever, tough challenges. Yeah, you built your own business. Of course, there's a lot of challenges. I think it's expected. Yeah. And it's, I don't think people think about the mental toil that goes into it enough or the interpersonal or personal challenges. Just, you know, it's hard to have a steady, strong relationship during it. It's hard to not lose your mind and lose your cool while doing it all. And so it is much easier and arguably much more convenient to just follow a more traditional path. And in fact, until everyone, do not do a startup, never do a startup. Just because at the end of the day, you are guaranteed some sort of success as most people define it by going through a very, you know, standard set of things. You know, for me, it was MIT, then I would do McKinsey, then I'd go Harvard Business School, and then, you know, join some PE fund somewhere like that. And there's one of my best friends did that and is insanely successful, is insanely happy. And, you know, it's, it's hard to not do that and then throw it, you know, all in a high risk move where you sure that, you know, the benefits are huge. But, you know, if you look at the cost and even look at the expected value, it's with all the risk. I mean, it's pretty, pretty low. And so I basically tell everyone, do not do a startup. And I mean, the people that don't listen to me are the ones that are so help bent on chasing this path that eventually I ended up venturing on myself or are so passionate about an idea that they couldn't live with themselves without doing. And so those are the people that end up becoming on for yours. But, you know, you would have to fight me repeatedly to keep doing your idea if you kept asking for my input, because I would always tell everybody just don't do a startup. But yeah, it's the people that don't listen to me that would end up probably being, you know, very, very successful, but don't tell them that otherwise. Do it and not everyone is sure. And so I like that a lot. But, you know what, there is something to be said for traditional, because I would have said up until about two weeks ago, traditional is very secure. But I think that, you know, I've been thinking a lot about the shift in business, the coronavirus is taking the world. And I think that, yeah, maybe going full-fledged into a startup is still going to be the same level of stress as it was pre-coronum. But I think that being able to diversify and expand and grow should be top of mind, outside your immediate reality for people, because, you know, these traditional industries, so now we've seen they have no catch flow to pay people past. So that's absolutely. And I think that's the world needs startups, the world needs disruption, because, you know, to the point that you just mentioned, and what I said earlier, imagine if coronavirus, COVID-19, had hit us 15, 20 years ago, or imagine if industries had stayed the way they had, and there was no such thing as Instacart, or Zoom, or Skype, or, you know, pick your company based on Apple, right? Imagine what the world would have looked like if it didn't have that. So I think the world needs innovation. I think the world needs startups and entrepreneurs, and I think, you know, the onus on societies and governments, and whatever it may be, is to make sure that they're always able to keep a healthy climate for that around, just because, you know, there will come a day where, you know, a lot of those things make the difference between happiness and not, or survival and failure. And that's not to say there's a lot of startups that haven't been able to weather this storm, right? And so it's, you know, it is insanely risky, and a lot of startups don't have, you know, there's a lot of big conglomerates that just sucked in Q1, and we're probably sucking Q2 as well, but they have billions and billions of dollars of cash to weather this storm. Whereas if you're a startup, and, you know, a lot of startups have to invest all their money into growth or into people, or whatever it may be, you know, they don't have those cash reserves to actually make it through all this. I mean, we had to take on the most insane debt facility, just to make sure that we're able to kids and you growing and have cash on hand. But if we weren't doing really well, we would have never been able to achieve that during this time. And so I think there's, you know, I think we also need to make sure that we create systems and structures in place so that startups can continue being fostered and growing, knowing that, you know, some or many will fail, but the ones that don't hopefully make this world a better place. Very good. Last question for you is where do you go to learn and grow? So some books that are great people, podcasts, audibles, where you're, you're go to things that people can can watch on to. Yes, I think there's a lot of cool management books and I'm actually not even going to say a single one just because I think I don't want to buy people and I've not read enough to actually recommend any, but I think sometimes it's great to hear the stories of entrepreneurs going through tough times or more succeeding. I actually think the biggest growth for me has been twofold. One has been an executive coaching. I have become a much, much, much better leader through that. I would not be half the CEO I am today if it wasn't for executive coaching. So I think that's the first biggest thing that I would say beyond any books or anything like that, I think the best advice is advice that is personalized to you. Like, here's the situation, you know, how can you do better, how should you focus on your strengths, be okay with these weaknesses or get people to cover those. So I think that's the very first set of advice. And as a result of executive coaching, I mean, I've learned tremendously, I've learned, you know, anything that I'm spending hours doing on a regular basis, I should hire people for. How do I take a step back and make sure we're focusing on the biggest problems? How I'm making, you know, the best decisions and making decisions to not do things. There's countless examples I can go through to how executive coaching has helped. So I think that's one and the second is actually along those lines, which is therapy. I think personal therapy is insanely critical and important. Going through startups and there's a lot of founders, especially in Y Combinator, one of my favorite partners there is a guy named Dalton Caldwell. And I remember asking him, you know, what's the toughest thing about startups? And he's like, it's the mental game. It is such a tough mental game and I cannot echo that enough. And so I think that's the second half is, you know, if you're able to have a personal therapist and see them once a week, once every two weeks, whatever it may be, I see mine weekly and sometimes there are issues, sometimes there's no issues. But just having that cadence of making sure that I'm able to, you know, hash out my issues. It's some people meditate, some people do things on their own as well. And so that's great. But for me, just being able to have that cadence and make sure that I'm able to stay in this whole space from a mental perspective is, is insanely critical. And so I think that's the second half that I went, how I'd say. So yeah, it's executive coaching and a personal therapist. We might too like those are good. Yeah. Yeah. No, the mentorship is huge. And like the bespoke mentorship, I'm sure can be very, very helpful. And then yeah, like keep your mind right because everything you're saying is very much in line with other entrepreneurs that I've worked with. And it's tough. It's a tough game. It's a long game. So you got to, you got to find some way to stay staying in the best way possible. So good. Is there anything before we wrap up? Is there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to chat about or? No, I think, I think that's just, you know, whatever people pursue, whether that's like inertia or whatever, you know, don't forget to have fun with it. Otherwise, what's the point of it all? So yeah. Good, good. How do people, how do people get in touch with you? What's the website for function of beauty? Where do they reach out? Yeah, sure. Function of beauty is just functionabuty.com. You Google SEO game is good enough to where if you start spelling out function, you'll probably find them. So good. Good. Very good. All right. That's it, man. I appreciate the chat. That was really, really good. Thanks a lot. Appreciate Scott. That's all for today. Thanks again for joining me on another episode of the success story podcast. You can download or stream this podcast wherever podcasts are available, including iTunes, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and many others. You can also watch this podcast on YouTube. If you haven't already, please subscribe and share this podcast with your friends, family, co-workers, and peers. Please leave us a rating on iTunes. It takes about 30 seconds as it allows other people to find our podcasts and lets our amazing guests reach even more people with their message. And remember, any rating is fine as long as it contains five stars. I'm Scott Clary from the success story podcast signing off.