314: From Stay-At-Home Mom to an $845M Acquisition: How Drunk Elephant’s Tiffany Masterson Made The Leap

<p>When Tiffany Masterson was a stay-at-home mom, she was always looking for ways to make a little extra money. So when the opportunity came around to start selling a brand of bar cleanser as a side hustle, she didn’t think much of it.</p> <p>Little did she know that she would soon develop a passion for skincare, cultivate her own philosophy around what skincare should look like, and launch Drunk Elephant—a brand that was eventually sold to Shiseido in 2019 for a whopping $845 million.</p> <p>In this podcast episode, Masterson takes us through her unexpected journey as an entrepreneur—from having her brother-in-law as her first investor to snagging a partnership with Sephora, to building an incredible company culture.</p> <p>If there’s any other type of content you’d like to see that would be valuable to you during this time, please don’t hesitate to reach out at support@foundr.com.</p> <hr /> <h2 id="h.lm1580bynr3a">Key Takeaways</h2> <ul> <li>How Masterson, a stay-at-home mom of four children, started selling bar cleanser as a side hustle</li> <li>Why she developed a fascination with the world of skincare</li> <li>Masterson’s skincare philosophy, and how she started to create her dream product on paper</li> <li>What it was like to have her brother-in-law as her first investor</li> <li>Why Masterson kept the launch of Drunk Elephant in 2013 as minimal as possible</li> <li>How Drunk Elephant caught the eye of Sephora</li> <li>The cost of formulating, producing, and packaging 5,000 units of six products</li> <li>The tough financial conversations Masterson had to have</li> <li>Why Masterson chose to take things day-by-day instead of looking too far into the future</li> <li>The biggest trap Masterson believes most founders fall into</li> <li>How Masterson has kept her turnover rate at less than 2% since 2013</li> <li>The reason why people get excited about the Drunk Elephant brand</li> <li>Why Masterson doesn’t believe in trying to “outcompete” other brands</li> </ul>