Aspire with Emma Grede
How to Turn Rejection into Your Biggest Advantage (Laney Crowell)
17 Feb 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What mindset shifts helped Laney Crowell build her brand?
Today on Aspire, I'm sitting down with Lainey Crowell, founder and CEO of one of my favorite beauty brands, Say. Now, I know that so many of you dream of starting your own businesses. And so I want to bring you founders that will share their journey with honesty and with detail. Now, Lainey has been disrupting clean beauty since Say's launch in 2019.
And today they have seven products in the top 10 at Sephora. So real measurable success. But Lainey didn't get there by playing it safe. And so we discussed what she actually did to get this business launched.
In this episode, we're going to go beyond the wins and talk about the work behind the results, how she raised financing, how she thinks about growth and how she makes hard decisions today without a roadmap. It's an honest look at what it takes to build something from scratch and to scale it successfully while staying true to your vision all along the way. I'm really excited for you to tune in.
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And after you place your order, be sure to let them know that we sent you. Select podcast in the survey and choose our show in the dropdown menu that follows. Lainey, welcome to Aspire. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I am so happy to have you here. I've got so many questions for you. Didn't even need to do research for this one. I was like, I just know. I know everything I want to ask her.
Let's go because I have so much to talk about. I love it. It's so good. So there's so much to talk about, but let's really try and start at the beginning because I think before you built Say, you built something that so few people have, right? You built this element of trust through your community as an editor with The Moment. Yeah.
And I really wanted to ask you, like, how important do you think the groundwork that you laid in the beauty industry was before you started the business?
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Chapter 2: How can rejection be transformed into a driving force for success?
I had this great community. Funny story. One of the community members actually is now one of my merchants at Sephora. She was following along the whole time. But it was the best part about that was that I knew every brand. I knew the entire landscape inside and out.
And when you say you knew the entire landscape, like as an editor, you were looking at it through the lens of a consumer. Like, had you gone in and started to understand the business where the white space was? Like, give me an idea of what you were finding out.
But I wasn't looking at it like that. I was looking at it from an editor point of view of like, okay, well, what are all the skincare brands? What are all the haircare brands? And so then when it was, when I had that aha moment of like, oh, there's no clean beauty brands or there's
just a handful of color I knew every brand I knew their price point I knew everything about them and you thought I can do this better like what was the feeling well I was interviewing a lot of founders for my blog and I would interview them this feels like a really long time ago now that you say for my blog I know it was it was it was such a long time ago how long ago was it
Oh my gosh, that was like nine years ago now.
Wow. Nine years ago. So nine years ago, you're sitting there blogging, you're interviewing all of these founders.
Clean beauty wasn't even really a thing. It was so nascent. I remember interviewing these founders and they would tell me their stories and it was like, oh, well, I was a painter or I was just a mom or I was doing this or that. And I was like, oh, well... I have a lot of beauty experience.
You have a lot of beauty experience, but you also have like an amazing level of fearlessness because I think when you look at your career, you know, going from the Lord of Days, I heard that you like pitched an editor on the street to get an internship. Where's that fearlessness come from, do you think?
I mean, you know, I moved around my whole life. My mom was in the foreign service and my parents were very much always like, you can do anything. It doesn't matter if you're the best at it. And I'm not, I'm not the best at things, but I can do anything. And why do you say you can do anything? Like what's given you that belief?
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Chapter 3: What challenges do women face when raising capital?
I think going through the actions, like trying things and trying to do... I mean, I moved to New York. I didn't know anybody. So that's where that happened. I read every single magazine front to back every month. I decided, I was like, well, I should go do what I love. I love reading magazines. I moved to New York. I didn't know a soul. But when I ran into Kim France on the Fifth Avenue...
I recognized her because I read the editor letter every month. And so I walked up to her and I said, Miss France, I really would love to work in magazines. Do you have any advice for me? She emailed me back and she said, you have what it takes because you are fearless.
Wow.
Yeah. Right there. And that's how you got the internship. That is absolutely crazy. But I think a lot about resilience because I think that is my superpower, that I'm just not afraid of hard things. And I can take a really high pain tolerance. I can take those tough moments. And I think about, well, how did that happen?
And yes, I think moving around, having to be the new kid in school all the time, I think that definitely contributed to it. But yeah, my parents expected me to do hard things.
Say more about that because resilience is something that I talk about all the time because I feel like part of what I do every day is just take a lot of no's, like a lot of knockbacks. Like somebody is always telling me why something's not going to work out. So I'd love you just to speak a little bit more to how resilience shows up in your day now.
Well, first of all, I always say let the no's fuel you.
Mm-hmm.
I had a call the other day and someone said, you know, this guy that we work with now, you asked him to invest. And he says every day it's his biggest regret. And I said, man, I said, you know what the irony is? His no is what made me here today. Every no I get, I just let it fuel me.
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Chapter 4: Why is intentional hiring important for a startup?
So let's go just through this. So it's like you have your job at Lauder. You have an internship. You have a job at Lauder. You then start your own newsletter. Through that, the realization comes that the beauty or the clean beauty space is ripe for disruption. What do you do? Like, how do you even go, all right, I'm an editor and I'm going to start something. Just like talk me through that part.
So I had worked in beauty and I had been in the social side. So I came to Lauder to help them start all their social channels. I started their influencer marketing. I started their editorial. And that was all before like any of those were called those things. Like influencers weren't even called influencers then. They were called bloggers. And I left because I am the ultimate consumer.
I am so clear on what the consumer wants because I'm her. And I left being like, I just don't feel like beauty is speaking to me. I have really sensitive acne prone skin. And my aha moment was I realized my makeup was making me break out. And I was like, wait a minute, you're telling me that this piece of like luxury makeup that I spent my hard-earned money on is making my skin worse?
I felt so deceived. For me, that's like the ultimate betrayal as a customer. And I left with this big idea of like beauty should be better. really across the board and like a 360 degree point of view. And I, I didn't think that I was a beauty founder. Like people think I left water to start a brand. That's not true at all. I had to have expanders come into my life to show me like, Oh,
if they can do it, I can do it.
What parts felt unfamiliar or uncomfortable for you? Because I think there'll be so many people listening that go, I am not XX, whatever thing that they want to be. So in that sense- I wasn't anything.
I wasn't- You weren't anything, that's how you felt. I'm not a makeup artist. I'm not a product developer. I'm not an operations person. I don't know supply chain. I'm not a finance person. So every bit- Yeah. You felt uncomfortable and unfamiliar in every little part. But I love learning. So I love learning every single part of it.
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Chapter 5: How does a founder balance growth and quality in their business?
So who were the people that you leaned on in the beginning for guidance and to kind of get you, I guess, you know, up and started and going?
I mean, honestly, a big part of it was I had met all these founders and they had told me what, you know, what their experience was like. And I was like, oh, if they can do it, I can do it. And then there was the opportunity piece where I was like, okay, wow, like this is a huge opportunity.
And I called a product developer and I said, do you think it's possible to make really clean products that are great for your skin that even make your skin better that perform? Because who wants makeup that doesn't perform? And when she said to me, a hundred percent, it's possible. That's when I said, okay, let's go. And I just put, I just put one foot after the next.
And that's why I always, to me, I think anyone can do anything.
So talk me through that part. What did it look like? But in one foot in front of the next at that point, right? So it's like you have your reputation. What's the first thing that you did to get say off the ground?
I started calling people. I called my dad. I said, you are a lawyer. Can I speak to a lawyer? I called my friend who I know had raised money in a completely different sector. And I said, what does it even mean to raise money? I didn't even know what any of it was. I had to learn that whole language. But there was a need for you to raise money at the gate. Yeah. I always wanted to be big. Right.
That was very clear to me. I didn't start, say, to be a small brand.
Got it. And so you called, you called a lawyer, you called a friend. I called a lot of friends.
I said, I don't know why the number 70, but I always say talk to 70 people. And so I have an Excel sheet and I just start putting in the name, the number, when I spoke to them and the notes they had. And then I always say to the person, can you introduce me to one more person?
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Chapter 6: What role does community play in building a brand?
You had an Excel sheet and I just had my dyslexic brain running like circles around me.
I'm extremely dyslexic as well. We have that in common. I think, I think that's actually one of our superpowers. It's a superpower, right? But I don't even do Excel. I do Google Sheets.
Google Sheets. Yeah. That's Google Sheets. I still don't know even how to find my Google Sheets, but this is not about me. All right. So this is where I want, you know, the people at home, this is the moment to take out your pens because I want to talk about raising the money because you've spoken very openly about how difficult it was to raise money.
But I want you to, I want to understand, like, did you have a solid plan? Like how laid out was it? Did you, how did you figure out what you would even need?
Yeah. So I had called someone that I knew who had worked in venture and she helped me put together my pitch deck. So I had that in every single meeting afterwards, I would tweak it. So with every note that I got, I would tweak or make a learning or something to like refine, refine, refine. And again, I started with here are... a fund I've heard of.
The first one on my list was Unilever Ventures because I knew that they were mission aligned with my mission. They are so passionate about sustainability and the planet. And I wanted like-minded investors. The second person was Gwyneth Paltrow. Again, no idea how I was going to get to any of these people.
And I think there is power in writing things down because even though I had no idea how I was going to get to either of those two, they're now my investors. That's crazy. So actually you had them on your list of targets. Number one and number two. So how did you get to them? Just a lot. I mean, Unilever Ventures, I got invited to a brunch in LA because of the woman that does my brows.
And she said, you should come to this brunch as founders and investors. And I remember telling my husband, I'm going to go to LA for this. And he said, you're going to LA for a brunch? And I was like, I don't know. My gut just tells me I should go. And when I went, someone there said, I'm going to introduce you to Brandon. He's now one of my first investors, Brandon Sheinfeld.
And he said, on the first call, he said, I'm in. And he said, I'm going to introduce you to Unilever Ventures. And it was like the twilight zone. I was like, my gut literally drove me to this moment. That's wild. And my investor, Rachel at Unilever Ventures, also got it from the moment we met. From the get-go.
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Chapter 7: How does being a mother influence entrepreneurial decisions?
I was like, that was not a question for me. I was like, I like working by myself. I'm super clear on my vision. I just actually didn't really speak to those people again when that was their advice.
That's a bold move. Why were they telling you you needed a co-founder? I was a first time founder. Like someone to run the business for you?
Yeah.
Someone to run the business, someone who had done it before.
Yeah.
I mean, fair, fair point, right? I mean, there's a part of me that goes, as a first time founder, you could well have been like, yeah, I definitely need that person. But you had the conviction to know you could do it yourself.
I also had listened to a lot, a lot of How I Built This. And if you listen to that podcast, there's very few co-founders that are still together. That is absolutely true. It's hard to work with people on an even playing field where both of your ideas have equal weight. I think it's a lot easier to have just a clear vision. At least that was just kind of what my gut told me.
Yeah, I think you're right about that. I also think that if it's the reason to find a co-founder is to fill in for your blind spots. Yes. That's different because you can hire those people, right? So I think that having a co-founder and having senior people that sit beside you in your business to do something that you're not proficient in are two totally different things.
Like a co-founder is a co-founder. And I have partners in my business who are like my, they're my ride or dies. Damn right.
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Chapter 8: What advice does Laney have for aspiring female founders?
Yeah. How much do you think that women, or do you believe that women have any responsibility to pay for that? Should we be investing in brands? Should we be investing in brands? And do you think that women, for whatever reason, their pitches might fall short? Like I'm wondering if you have any theory or thought around why women get so little? such a tiny, tiny piece of the pie?
I don't think that people think women can run businesses. I think there's like this really just pervasive thought that men are more comfortable running things. I saw this fantastic TikTok the other day that was like, they can't run Thanksgiving dinner. Why do we feel like they should be running anything? Yeah.
I mean, running a business is a little like Thanksgiving. There's a lot of shit happening at once. It's really true. All right. So talk to me about the decisions that you've made when it comes to operating your business, because say is, you know, to me, it's so clear what you're doing. It has such a clear point of view. Yes.
And I imagine that there are a lot of non-negotiable decisions that you've had to put in place in order to live up to the promise that you set out in the beginning and the space that you know had to be filled. So what decisions did you make that have dictated the way Say would operate?
So we have a really clear North Star from day one. We want to make products that people love, that are great for their skin and even make their skin better. We want that to build with our community. We want to do right by our planet and we want to have fun. And so all of that... Are you having fun? I'm having the best time. And I think it shows up in everything that we do. I agree.
I think that it makes our brand magnetic. I think it helps us retain talent. I think that it even dictates like you're going to make great products if you're having a great time doing it. It's a value that I think is so important.
I love that for you because I feel like inevitably running a business is so hard that there has to be some element in it that's like... you know, when making cosmetics, like it needs to be fun. Like, and I feel like that comes through so much in all of your communications, in your emails, the way you guys write.
Like to me, it's very visible that you're having a great time building this best in class brand. I didn't start a brand to not want to go to work.
And like starting a business is so hard. So much work. I mean, we launched, say, four months before COVID. Oof. I mean, it's been like, you know, a ride.
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