When Laney Crowell left her communications job at cosmetics behemoth Estée Lauder in 2016, she didn’t have a transparent roadmap to creating Saie — her clear magnificence model that now sells $100 million yearly. What she did have, nonetheless, was a deep Rolodex that she believed might assist her construct something.
“I have this thing where I tell myself that I just have to talk to 70 people,” Crowell instructed NYNext of her strategy to networking. “I make a listing in Google Sheets and I simply cross folks off the listing — I ask for their suggestion for who I ought to speak to subsequent, and then I get one other identify and simply preserve going.
“My mantra is, just get up one more day, then [connect with] the next person and you’ll get there.”
That networking ethos finally helped Crowell establish the market alternative and safe funding for Saie, which is beloved by celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Kristen Bell.
After leaving Estée Lauder, Crowell launched a magnificence weblog the place she reviewed merchandise and found a big hole within the high-end clear magnificence market.
This was effectively earlier than #cleanbeauty began trending on TikTok or Sephora launched a “clean seal” in 2018 — a sign that one thing is formulated with out components like mercury compounds or formaldehyde.
On the time, the clear make-up trade, which is predicted to hit $52 billion by 2030, was then valued at nearer to $5 billion.
So Crowell, now 43, began talking with dozens of individuals about her concept of launching a model freed from chemical compounds, like sulfates and parabens, that may disrupt hormones and injury pores and skin.
By 2019, Crowell had launched with mascara 101 and secured investments from notable figures like Gwyneth Paltrow and G9 Ventures founder Amy Griffin, who has additionally backed Bumble, Whats up Sunshine and Goop.
“A huge part of my success was that being in New York gave me proximity [to investors and other power players]. I could do five meetings in a day if I wanted to, and I did because I like to work fast,” Crowell explains. “Proximity is everything.”
That proximity is even how she bought her first job when she moved to New York on the lookout for work after graduating from Pomona Faculty.
“I read every single magazine front to back, so of course I knew what the editors looked like because I would read their editor’s letter,” Crowell defined.
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When she noticed Kim France, then the editor of Fortunate, on Fifth Avenue, Crowell launched herself and walked away with France’s enterprise card.
“I emailed her and she wrote back and she said, You have what it takes to be in this industry, and that’s fearlessness,” Crowell mentioned. That led to her first job, when France employed her as an assistant.
Her model’s very identify is derived from the concept she is at all times talking with folks and staying related with clients. “You Saie It, We Create It,” is a phrase Crowell used early on as she developed merchandise — she modified the spelling of the phrase “say” to make it a bit extra female and distinctive.”
“We’re in business for the people who are buying our products,” Crowell mentioned. “So I at all times wish to be speaking to them and asking them what they’re on the lookout for and listening to what they’re saying [on social media].
“I think that’s where brands can really get in trouble, is when they get too distant from that conversation.”
Saie, which had been working out of Laney Crowell’s residence for years, lastly bought its personal world headquarters within the metropolis — an ethereal Soho loft — final yr. It’s turn into an area the place purchasers can drop in to get their make-up achieved and influencers can shoot movies within the model’s video studio.
And they’re very vocal about what they need.
“They said, I want it to be really clean. I don’t want it to just be marketing,” Crowell mentioned of her group. This led to Saie’s strict ingredient coverage which excludes over 2,000 chemical compounds, like artificial perfume and GMOs frequent in different manufacturers, from their formulations.
Crowell says she additionally wished a product she felt secure placing on her pores and skin. “I’m not a makeup artist. I’m a normal, everyday girl just trying to look her best and have my skin look its best.”
This story is a part of NYNext, a new editorial collection that highlights New York Metropolis innovation throughout industries, in addition to the personalities main the way in which.
