"I feel seen by consumers. They took notice of the things we didn't have the budget to communicate, at first."

Lindsay Holden, co-founder of Odele Beauty, on how branding drives discovery, the value of curiosity, and why you should start before you’re ready.

Jump into the episode on Spotify , Apple , or wherever you get your podcasts.

This week we talked to Lindsay Holden, co-founder of the beauty brand Odele Beauty. Odele offers high-performing, great-smelling, beautiful hair care and body wash products at a super accessible price point.

They’ve been featured on The Today Show , in outlets like Allure, and their products are on the shelves at major retailers like Target and CVS. Our conversation covered the unexpected impact of their brand look, Lindsay’s 8 years as a merchant at Target (pre-Odele), the benefit of three co-founders, and the advice she’d give anyone starting a company.

Two quick links:

- Before we recorded, Odele sent me a few products to try out. No affiliate links or kickbacks for me here - I honestly loved them all. My fave was this moisture mask.

- Lindsay and I talked about the impact of their pretty and simple branding. A few days later I stumbled on this study about the benefits of minimalist packaging. Worth a read if you find that bit of the convo interesting.

Here are a few highlights from our chat:

What advice would you give folks in their first 12 to 18 months of starting a business??

Be curious. You're never going to feel totally ready. It's never going to be perfect. You just need to start, and one thing will prompt the next. Nothing is going to fully prepare you for building your own business.

Reach out and talk to people. Talk to those who may have done this thing that you've never done before. Take from it what you think applies or could apply to your business and go from there.

Also, networking is huge. Beauty, in particular, is an awesome industry with so many people willing to share a lot. It's a really inclusive, warm and welcoming industry.

And trust yourself. And know that there's no one true right way to do something. But doing it is better than not doing it at all.??

What's been easier than you expected??

I think it's been the consumer love, really, and the earned support. Since day one, we're like, ‘We're all the things, we're clean, we're inclusive, we're gender-neutral fragrance, derm-tested, color-safe, high-performance’ … we're a lot of things.

It's been hard for me to be like, okay, here's my elevator pitch - because I could just go on and on.?

So we've tried to understand: What is the most relevant message? And how and where does it show up??

And what I have loved is that I feel seen by consumers. And by the press. They take notice of a lot of the things that we didn't have the budget to communicate, at first. It’s seeing that people are already thinking about our brand and noticing the attributes that we worked so hard to make fundamental to Odele.

On Odele’s beautiful packaging

We didn't want to put a lot of cost into the bottle because we knew that the goop itself was the most important. But, at the same time, we wanted it to look beautiful.

These bottles are out on display in your shower. It helps people enjoy the product a little bit more when it looks nice in your space versus something you use and then just want to tuck under your counter again.

So we really scrutinized what we put on the bottle. We stripped it down to the key elements - hair type and texture. We put that on the front and everything else is on the back. And, in its simplicity, it's actually been really disruptive on the shelf.?

It’s just these simple bottles lined up, and that draws your eye in.?

So that's lent itself to a ton of discovery, too. Countless people have told me, when I'm like, ‘How did you find out about us?’ they say, ‘So I was in the aisle and I picked up your bottle because it was pretty.’

Listen to the full interview on Spotify , Apple , or wherever you get your podcasts.

Lindsay, thank you so much!

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