When Laney Crowell left her communications job at Cosmetics Behemoth Estée Lauder in 2016, she didn't have a clear roadmap to create SAIE – Her clean beauty brand currently sells $100 million annually. But what she did have was a deep Rolodex that she believed could help her build anything.
“There's a part of me that says to myself, I just have to talk to 70 people,” Crowell told Nynext about her approach to networking. “I create a list in Google Sheets and just cross people from the list. I'd like their recommendations on who to talk to next.
“My mantra is to wake up one more day. [connect with] The next person and you get there. ”
That networking spirit ultimately helped Crowell identify market opportunities and secure funding for Saye, which is beloved by celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Kristen Bell.
After leaving Estée Lauder, Crowell started a beauty blog where she reviewed products and discovered a huge gap in the high-end clean beauty market.
This was long before #CleanBeauty started trending on Tiktok. In 2018, Sephora launched “Clean Seal”. This indicates that something is formulated without ingredients such as mercury compounds or formaldehyde.
At the time, the clean makeup industry, expected to reach $52 billion by 2030, was valued at nearly $5 billion.
So Crowell, now 43, talked to dozens of people about her idea to launch a brand free of chemicals like sulfates and parabens, which can disrupt hormones and damage skin. I started.
By 2019, Crowell started with Mascara 101 and secured investment from notable figures such as Gwyneth Paltrow and G9 Ventures founder Amy Griffin.
“A big part of my success was the proximity of being in New York to me. [to investors and other power players]. I could do five meetings in one day if I wanted, and I did it because I like to work fast,” Crowell explains. “Proximity is everything.”
That proximity is how she got her first job when she moved to New York looking for work after graduating from Pomona College.
“I read all the magazines back and forth, so of course I read the editor's letters, so I knew what the editors looked like,” Crowell explained.
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When she spotted Lucky's editor, Kim France, on Fifth Avenue, Crowell introduced herself and walked in with France's business card.
“I emailed her and she wrote back, and she said, you have what it takes to be in this industry, and it's fearless,” Crowell said. Ta. That led to her first job when France hired her as an assistant.
The very name of her brand comes from the idea that she is constantly talking to people and staying connected with her customers. “You say it, we create it” is a phrase used by Crowell When she developed the product, she changed the spelling of the word “say” to make it a little more feminine and unique. ”
“We are in business for the people who are buying our products,” Crowell said. “So I always like to talk to them, ask them what they're looking for, hear what they're saying. [on social media].
“I think that's where brands can really get into trouble, when they get too far from that conversation.”
After operating for years out of Laney Crowell's home, Saie acquired its own world headquarters (the airy Soho Loft) in the city last year. It has become a space where clients can get their makeup done and influencers can shoot videos in the brand's video studio.
And they're very vocal about what they want.
“They said, I want it to be really clean. I don't want it to just be marketing,” Crowell said of her community. This led to Saie's strict element policy, which excludes over 2,000 Chemicals like synthetic fragrances and GMOs that are common in other brands are from the formulation.
Crowell says she also wanted a product that she felt was safe for her skin. “I'm not a makeup artist. I'm just a regular, everyday girl trying to make her look her best and my skin look its best.”
This story is part of Nynext, part of Nynext. This is a new editorial series highlighting New York City's innovation and leading character across industries.
