A Conversation with Lisa Price | Big Think

A Conversation with Lisa Price

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Lisa Price, president and founder of Carol’s Daughter, a line of beauty products, discusses how to turn a hobby into a successful business.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Lisa Price: None at all. None at all. I did have a grade school teacher in 5th grade who thought that I was a genius businessperson, because whenever we had a cake sale, I sold the most.

But other than that, there was no indication that I would be an entrepreneur at all.

Lisa Price: Well, the Carol’s Daughter project really started as a hobby, and I started dabbling in fragrances, because I’ve always loved perfume. So I started to make my own fragrances. I found a place where I could buy perfume oils.

In order for a fragrance to last, you have to put it in product. You can’t just spray on a cologne or a perfume. You need lotion and shower gels, so you layer the scent and it stays with you.

So I needed to have product for my fragrances, and I started adding these fragrance oils to unscented products. And that sort of lended itself to, well, why don’t I just create my own? And I’ve always had dry skin, so I should make my own moisturizer. And I just did research through books on essential oils, and just played around with recipes, but really did it as a hobby for fun when I was off from work.

And my mother encouraged me to sell at a church flea market. And I did, and I was successful, and got a flier for another craft fair two weeks later, and did that. And thought, well, I could do this on Saturdays when I’m not working. I worked in television and film production, so your work kind of shifted, and it was summer, and there wasn’t much work going on, so I ended up spending this whole summer selling at craft fairs and flea markets.

And when I went back to work, I had people calling me that needed to get refills on their lotions and creams, so I sort of stumbled into a business.

Lisa Price: My husband makes a joke about that all the time, that I initially did this so I’d be able to stay home with my children, and now I travel like four times a month for business, and I’m not home.

So I was home when they were babies, but I’m not at home as much now.

Question: How did you turn your hobby into a business?

Lisa Price: Well, initially, well the first thing I had to do was thing of a name, and I actually got pushed into thinking of a name by someone referring me to their hair salon. They went to a hair salon, and they used to take their hair oil with them, and the people at the hair salon said, “Where do you get this hair oil?”

“Oh, a friend of mine makes it.”

So they wanted me to come in and show them what I make.

And I said to myself, “Well, I can’t go in without a name, like I’ve got to have a name on this stuff.” And I made a list of things that I was, and a list of things I wanted to become, and one of the things I was, was Carol’s daughter.

I was also Robert’s daughter, and at the time, Gordon’s girlfriend.

But when I said Carol’s daughter out loud, it just sort of stuck, so that was the first thing I did was come up with a name.

And then after doing the flea market thing for awhile, and realizing that it could be more than just a hobby, then I went and got the business certificate the doing business as certificate, so I became a sole proprietorship. And I just kept doing research on it, always like kind of learning from it. It was my second job until 1996. I started in ’93, and until 1996 it was my second job. Just before I had my first son, he was born in March, I quite my full time job in February, and just started doing it full time at that point.

Question: When did you start to hire people?

Lisa Price: I didn’t hire anyone until 1999.

Prior to that any help that I got was basically donated help someone in the neighborhood that had a couple of hours to spare, a cousin that could help me, a retired aunt people that would just come over and lend a hand, or kind of trade products for services. You know, they’d help me bottle things and then get some perfume for free or something, but I didn’t really have a staff until about 1999.

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