Priscilla Shumba: [00:00:00] If you are a founder trying to grow and feeling the weight of what it takes to get to the next level, you need this conversation. Tracy Holland is the co-founder of Hatch Beauty and helps scale it to more than $750 million in cumulative wholesale revenue. She brings both the business lessons and the personal wisdom that comes with that kind of growth.

In this episode, we are gonna unpack what really changes as you scale from a million dollars to 10 million to a hundred million where founders get stuck, and how to build a bigger business without burning out, without breaking down, or without losing who you are along the way. ,

Priscilla Shumba: Tracy, welcome to The Entrepreneur's Kitchen.

My first question, let's dive right in. $750 [00:01:00] million in cumulative wholesale revenue. Whoa, that just blew my brain. But thinking back on your journey. What were the three most consequential shifts from a working business to truly scaling?

Tracy Holland: Hi, first of all, thank you for having me here and talking, and FI love speaking to entrepreneurs. It's a passion of mine because there's so much that I wish that I had access to, and there were so many moments where I thought about quitting. And so if this helps one person continue to push past their fear, then I'm all in. I think the revenue number, the revenue number, is not as important in this conversation as I think the three things that I would be thinking about if I were to be building and scaling a business that can cause. You to derail quickly. And the first thing is really understanding your cash flow and knowing [00:02:00] where your cash cycle lies and understanding how to manage that against what you will need in order to build the business.

And frankly, ensuring that your timeliness on managing your cash reserves as it relates to growth happens. Cash comes in and then hiring happens. And most people do it the inverse, right? They hire and start to load their business up with a lot of expenses and overhead and then run out of, run out of gas or fuel or , financial resources before they have a chance to really scale.

So thinking through and. I would say that the other thing that I've seen as a result of that is many founders putting a lot of debt on credit cards, especially women or putting personal guarantees on their assets. And [00:03:00] so thinking about your business has to be approached in two phases. One is what's bringing cash in the door immediately to just continue to satiate the need. And the second thing is, where's the long-term strategy and where's the long-term growth coming from? And so how you build your business, at least for Hatch Beauty was a mixture of private label, and that was just to bring cash in the door every single month and then longer term, longer run. Brand building opportunities was a secondary resource, and that allowed us the cash we needed to continue to build resources, intellectual property and cash reserves. And so that blending is probably knowing your financial profile, whether you're a service-based business or a product-based business. There's always this rub between sales and operations and execution on your team and how you [00:04:00] have enough overhead to manage your business growth. Growth. And so I really counsel thinking about your quick cash in opportunities that keep the business afloat versus the longer term brand building opportunity or service business based opportunity.

The second thing is team and knowing the culture of your business and making sure that you protect it fiercely because team is everything and making sure that you have, even if you can't afford bonuses, you can afford special gifts or sweet notes or things that make people feel appreciated.

Continuing team is a really mission critical piece to the overall business growth and how you get from a million to 10 million or 10 million to 50 million, 50 to a hundred. It's definitely team and the tool that I've used to select the best possible team members is a tool that I [00:05:00] have no investment in or obligation to, but something that I utilize, which is called Culture Index. And it's probably the most effective scaling tool I've ever used to figure out who to hire and not waste time interviewing people who weren't right for the job. Because your cost of human capital and your turnover is very costly if they head out the door with all your intellectual property and retraining them is a big investment. And then the third thing is mindset.

Priscilla Shumba: thing,

Tracy Holland: So the third thing to get from one to 10 and 10 to a hundred million in revenue or beyond is a hundred percent how you think about your life, how you think about opportunity, how you lead, how you show up, and how your mindset works for you and for the business every day or works against you.

And that's [00:06:00] such an important piece of the puzzle. So cash people, mindset.

Priscilla Shumba: At what point did you decide to have the private label be the quick cash in? 'cause I'm thinking to founders who are trying to brand build, that's not the immediate first thought.

We're sometimes so invested in trying to build a brand and, thinking of private label almost feels like the opposite direction of what we're trying to do. I'm interested in sort of the thought process that led to that .

Tracy Holland: I fell upon it to be candid. In year 2010, we were approached by Trader Joe's at that time for a product that we had developed. Which was a hand sanitizer with lots of moisturizing ingredients in it, and it was naturally derived and the formula was quite unique. And it just so happens that we were coming off of bird flu, or I think it was swine flu, one of the kind of global situations in the years prior, I think it was 2009, in which [00:07:00] people were coming off of this kind of fear, 2008, 2009.

So we had this business opportunity, and when I understood their business model, trader Joe's is this very prolific and incredible grocery chain here in the US and most of the products in their stores are Trader Joe's branded product, not other brands. And so when I understood the math and how many units they move per week, per door, per month, per year I thought , there's no way we can say no to this because we're talking at least a million to a million and a half dollars per skew at, let's say 30 to 40% margin.

And when you start to look at how you fund a business, you can either borrow against yourself and borrow money to fund, or you can generate additional cash flow and top line revenue and then take a portion of that [00:08:00] and put that to your business overhead and your business expenses. And I always advise founders to do the latter because the former requires one of two things.

One, you're borrowing against yourself. So you're taking a personal guarantee, a personal loan, credit card debt, et cetera. Or alternatively, many times you're giving away equity in your business, you're trading equity for cashflow, you're trading equity for investor funds. my experience with that, although has not always been a difficult experience for the most part.

I find, especially beginning founders never really have an advantage when raising capital in the beginning stages of their business. They're trading a ton of equity for a very little amount of investment capital. So I highly recommend looking at alternative ways to bring cash into your business.

And the two biggest and opportunities are private [00:09:00] label. And the second biggest opportunity is direct to consumer.

Priscilla Shumba: Tracy, you mentioned that you used a culture index. Tell me, when you were thinking about culture, talk us through how you thought about it

Tracy Holland: I think we didn't

do that, which I think was a mistake, and I have learned a big lesson as a result of that. So I'm grateful for that lesson, which is when you do sit down with a co-founder, if you choose to have a co-founder aligning on some very important parts of your business relationship and how you are going to run something and what that, that experience is going to be like, is important to talk through.

As important as if you were to marry a spouse and choose to have children. And then say, how would you handle it if my son or our daughter does this, and this? What would your reaction be? And if you think about it in relationship with a spouse, if you have two very [00:10:00] extreme behavior types, one who's punitive and one who's lax, you're going to have friction. And in the case of building a business, if you do have a co-founder, aligning upfront on culture and what is and is not workable or acceptable to both of you and how you want people to feel every day they come to work is mission, mission critical. And so I would say with Hatch Beauty, we did not discuss that upfront.

And that ended up being. Somewhat of a hybrid relationship with our culture and we learned a lot, I think, both of us on how to run a business differently on a go forward. But since Hatch Beauty, it's also been a great learning opportunity for me to be very thoughtful and mindful about how I build and scale businesses now and what kind of culture I protect and how important [00:11:00] ensuring that is when I interview and hire someone to ensure they're aligned first to the culture before I really think about them as a hire.

Priscilla Shumba: I wonder what's really important for you in terms of culture. Because for first time founders, you hear the word culture, but you don't really understand 

Tracy Holland: Yeah. I think you have to start with thinking to yourself, how do I wanna feel every day that I go to the office or I spend time with my team and I'm gonna speak for myself and what works for me. I wanna feel deeply connected and invested in everyone's wellbeing and best interest. I wanna win for them and I want them to win for me. And that includes me celebrating their birthday or a big milestone in their family with a child getting into a college. Or it could be just sitting down and sharing a meal with them and looking forward to spending time getting to hear more about what's [00:12:00] going on in their life. I genuinely want to have that kind of relationship with each person that I'm interfacing with. And then I also wanna know that culturally they understand that we all put in 110%. And we expect that of each other. And yet we give each other the assumptive benefit of the doubt if something goes wrong. So there's really no finger pointing, there's no calling people out and singling them out. It's really about where did we collectively drop the ball when we didn't get that done, and how could we be better next time?

And so we always do group hindsight. After a launch, for example, we'll do a launch and then we'll get the group together afterwards and pull it apart and say, how could we have done that better or different? What did we learn? And that brings people together so that there's no [00:13:00] finger pointing, because as soon as there's this feeling of judgment and singling people out, they react in a way that makes them not part of a team. It makes people feel uncomfortable, like they're being. Singled out and it doesn't create a sticky culture. So I think culture, even if you have two people in your office every day, you know that mojo between founder and key employees that are carrying a lot of water, especially when they're doing a couple of different jobs at the same time, is a really important dynamic to protect and to groom and to maintain and to invest in.

Priscilla Shumba: Tracy I realized that we don't even get into how all of this started. Now. I'd love to hear the story of how Hatch Beauty came to be because I know there are a lot of aspiring founders 

Tracy Holland: Sure. I mean, hatch Beauty was

a a long time ago for me. I've had a. Couple of additional businesses since then that [00:14:00] are also accelerator businesses where I take talent and I wrap brand around them. And then we have a go to market. We've done that in hospital and medical channel.

We've done that very robustly over the last two years on QVC with a brand called Love Who You Are. And just recently launched in a private community, a brand called Plant Apothecary, which is a co-created community-based brand that we've developed with 3000 women. And we've heard from them all the things that they're looking for um, who are immune compromised and somewhere between 45 and 70 years of age.

But Hatch Beauty really was the genesis for me. My idea was really I saw a need in the market that retailers had at the time. To find unique, innovative product and brands that stood out across the hall or [00:15:00] across the street from their competitor. So CVS was very much looking for differentiation from Walgreens.

Walmart was looking for differentiation from Wal, uh, Walmart was looking for differentiation from Target, and Amazon was eating everyone's lunch. And so everyone was like, how do we create some unique product and brand experience within our four walls that isn't on a national brand basis? And frankly, the genesis of that concept came for me in 2007 and 2008 on two different initiatives I worked on one with CVS. One with Costco on the Kirkland Signature brand in which we took Kirkland signature in the beauty business and the beauty department, and we really worked through how do we bring a beauty and innovation and ingredient story into Kirkland Signature with the body lotion program that we developed with them. And so [00:16:00] I knew at the time before Hatch Beauty existed, I was very aware that there was this deep need in the market for retailers to have a resource to lean on that had innovation, product development, packaging design go to market strategy and full turnkey services, able to support the retailers.

Customer profile and margin analysis and retail pricing strategy because every retailer has different pricing strategies and really could customize a brand, but utilizing a well-known talent who could drive top of funnel awareness. 

Priscilla Shumba: Tracy, maybe you can just explain to us exactly what is Hatch Beauty, because when I heard of the concept, I thought was very

interesting. 

Tracy Holland: sure. Really this concept 

came 

from the food industry. The food industry has been [00:17:00] innovating unique product for retailers for a long time, where a retailer would bring in a special cheese or a special dairy product or dessert, and it would be uniquely their kind of co-created opportunity.

Trader Joe's is great example of someone who innovates a lot around food, and when I knew at the time that retailers were looking for differentiation. What we had in the beginning of our business was an agency, so we were gun for hire. Retailers would come and hire us and we would create a brand or a product suite for either retailers or for brands.

And so we were hired to do creative brand strategy, naming strategy assortment strategy and product development. And we morphed that core original business into a full service [00:18:00] turnkey strategy team. an agency that would do all of the creative and brand and product, and then assign or bring in a talent partner in order to bring marketing and awareness to the launch and ongoing build of the business.

And we also bought a manufacturing facility after a few years of being in business. And that manufacturing facility served as a filler manufacturer for us for probably one third of our volume. And it was very. Helpful to have a manufacturing facility because it gave us cost transparency on the cost of goods, on the cost of formulation, and the ways in which we could develop product and finished goods. 

Priscilla Shumba: , People often say that the first million, in this case you're moving from agency, but I'm thinking of.

In general, in your journey, people often say the first million is the hardest. 

Tracy Holland: Mm. Again, going back to my three things, when you start a [00:19:00] business to know better than anything else between your cash and your profitability and your cashflow and people, and then mindset. The agency was a cashflow machine for us because we're a services based business. So what the agency allowed for us to do is charge a monthly retainer and then project project based fees two brands into companies who would pay us.

On these retainers, and those retainers is, what cash flowed us to launch our business in the product side. So that was just another way of thinking about how do I cash flow? You know what became a million dollars? We were doing about two and a half million in agency fees every year. So our business grew rapidly.

We knew a lot of brands that needed agency services. So some brands could only afford us for 20 grand and , [00:20:00] we would do a brand deck for them or something, and other folks needed a full total reboot and a product overhaul. And we would do a full brand or we would conceive of a new brand.

And all of those opportunities gave us agency income, which cash flowed us to grow our product side of our business.

Priscilla Shumba: sometimes you don't even think about cash flow in that way. I think founders will really benefit from thinking about things in that way. , The other thing that people talk about, Tracy, is they talk about the importance of a vision.

And I wonder early on that was the vision with Hatch Beauty

Tracy Holland: Yes, I think there's three elements to a successful business, and you need to know as a leader and a founder, what your strength is. And the three, you don't have to be strong in all three, but you need to have at least two of the three. One is reach. So influence and reach, who are you going to sell to, and do you have reach and influence?

So do you have reach and influence to your retailers? [00:21:00] Do you have reach and influence on your Instagram handle? Do you have reach and influence on TikTok or on QVC or one of those things? So Reach is one. The second one is the infrastructure itself. As an operator, someone has to be an excellent operator.

Someone who has just an intrinsic skill on building and scaling and knowing the parts and pieces. And I think of these people, I call them a architects, I also call them integrators, which is a term that I borrowed from Culture Index and EOS, which are two operating systems for entrepreneurs. So architects and integrators are the middle of the three legs on the stool, and it's an emission critical.

Part of the three legs on the stool. Because if you think about it, if a stool only has two legs, it doesn't stand right. You have to have a minimum, three legs for a stool to stand. And so when you [00:22:00] think about the three legs on the stool, the first one is reach. The second one is infrastructure or being that operator, integrator person.

And the third one, which I think is actually the most important of the three when you're starting, is vision. And the vision is a clear roadmap in your mind of exactly who you're selling to, what you're selling, why it's different, and being deeply passionate, almost cult-like passionate about why what you're doing is better or different than anyone else.

And how you are offering something that's unique and that vision. Whether it's your vision for your personal brand or your vision for how you're gonna build and scale your consumer brand or your digital brand. If you don't have a vision for who you'll be in three years, you need to stop and go back to the [00:23:00] drawing board and get clear because it's the fastest way to burn cash and run outta money, or it's the fastest way to lose momentum is if you're down the path.

And this happens all the time. Please hear this. If anyone's doing this, stop. If you have a vision and you're tracking on your vision, small pivots are okay, especially if you need to do little things and tweaks in order to help sustain cash flow, but to do a radical shift on your vision, halfway down the path generally happens because founders get founder fatigue and they burn out, or they quit, or they think this isn't working and I'm gonna shift. And that is the biggest loss of momentum causes the most fallout, I think, on businesses. And I buy distressed assets. I've met and bought plenty of businesses now that have not succeeded even though they [00:24:00] should have because they had the right idea and the right opportunity. But the founder lost their vision and then they lost their momentum.

And I just talked to one today. I talked to a founder today who has built this gorgeous, beautiful business to 20 plus million in revenue. And in then 2021, she became disenfranchised with her with her, with the category started to pull back from some of the businesses she was doing. Now she's at half the revenue, literally in half, and she's saying, I wanna sell the company. And I said, you're not selling as a company, you're selling as a distressed asset because you've literally lost 50% of your business in the last four years. There's no way to sell this and extract cash out the way you're [00:25:00] anticipating unless you start to think differently on who's gonna buy it.

Priscilla Shumba: Yeah, a lot of times you think, oh, if I get to a certain number, I won't feel like, the decision she made at 20 million, you would think that someone would charge a head.

Tracy Holland: Mindset is the key, is one of the

three. Most important aspects of building a successful business and being a successful entrepreneur. And I will say the probably the most important thing you can do is hire an executive coach from the beginning. As soon as you start having enough momentum and cash that you can afford, and you can find executive coaches for 250 to $450 a session.

And that sounds like a lot of money. But when you think about what that exec coach does to keep you accountable, and yes, now there are lots of AI coaching, there's so many cool AI programs that give you feedback and keep you accountable. I think accountability buddies are really [00:26:00] incredible.

And inside of Inner Fifth, which is an entrepreneurial group that I started four years ago, accountability buddies has been a foundational part of how I think about helping women entrepreneurs succeed and overcome their own worst enemy, which is usually themself.

Priscilla Shumba: Yeah. I hear you on that one. Tracy, when someone is looking for an executive coach, what are you looking for exactly? 

Tracy Holland: It, it depends on who you are and how you operate. I like coaches. Who have already exited and had a really successful business, I personally look for someone who's had more success than I have and who has already been there, done that. I have two coaches, and both of them have exited both of their businesses and one of them has exited his business so successfully that three years later, he ended up buying his business back for 10% of what he was paid for it because the people who bought it ran it into the ground. [00:27:00] So he's an awesome executive coach. Why? Because, one, he understands the grind of what it means to build and grow and scale a business. Two, he's very clear on what it takes to exit and to successfully execute on a plan. And three. I think someone who's had more success or has already been there and seen it all is a very useful and helpful person.

So I would highly encourage people when looking at an exec coach, this isn't someone that you want to hire who's just completed their certification um, program, and used to be, let's say a school teacher, an athlete, and now is becoming a life coach or an executive coach and they're starting their new coaching business. I think you need to sur surround yourself with five people on a regular basis who are as or more successful than you are, and laser focus on what you [00:28:00] wanna accomplish and then hold yourself accountable by meeting with them each week and having them give you feedback and show you your blind spots. So helpful.

Priscilla Shumba: Tracy, I saw on your Instagram, a long while ago actually, where you announced that Hatch Beauty had been bought, and you mentioned just how many stages the company had gone through. But what struck me is that you also mentioned the life stages. That you, the founders had gone through with this business.

You mentioned becoming moms, and I wondered, for female founders, you've lived this 

Tracy Holland: if any of 

the 

women listening are entrepreneurs and moms, I really feel for you because I know. You'll never feel like you're getting it right, meaning you never have enough time, right? We all have the one equalizer li in in the world, which is time. We all have the same amount we've been given 24 hours in a day.

And assuming those 24 hours can be spent, [00:29:00] any amount of those in waking hours, how you carve those hours out and how productive you are and what you do with that time is really mission critical to your success. And I can tell you, coming into motherhood, that was a very important job for me and something I took very seriously and wanted to do a good job. And your ba, your other baby, which is your business, and then the other people in your business need a lot of your time and attention for that to grow. And so I think, you know what, I encourage entrepreneurs. To think about, especially women who are not yet founders and who are coming to me saying, Hey, I'm thinking about starting my own business and I also wanna have kids.

And I say to them, timing is really important to think about. Your attention to both at the same time is extremely arduous. And my recommendation to you is that you choose one [00:30:00] and then the other, they don't have to happen at the same time. If you have an established business in your, in year four or five, six of a regularly growing cash flowing business that you're, you're scaling, having a child is awesome and you can do both at the same time.

You can usually step out, replace yourself and be thoughtful about where you spend your time. But there are a lot of women that I see. Putting themselves in a situation where they think they can do both at the exact same time. Start a business or be in year one of a new business and have a child. And unless you have a very supportive household or you have aging parents or aunts and uncles who can help you it's an incredibly difficult thing to do well and feel good about it.

'cause ultimately all this is done. Everything we're doing, Priscilla, is for joy. If we're not [00:31:00] doing it for joy, if we're not having fun along the way, it's definitely not something we should be doing.

Priscilla Shumba: Yeah. 

Tracy Holland: Not everything's fun, and I'm not suggesting that. But what I am saying is the life path you choose, where you spend your time, what you choose to build, should feel joyful and should be something you wake up in the morning and say, I cannot wait to do this.

This is so fun. And same with having kiddos. And so you're taking on two really important roles and it's a lot to do at the same time.

Priscilla Shumba: Yeah. Yeah, it's good that you spoke to trying to do one and not both at the same time. Not starting a business and starting a family at the same time. I wonder, because you also speak to female founders a lot, Tracy, what are , the hurdles that you've noticed trends or patterns, things that you see common among female founders?

Tracy Holland: I would say is make sure you've chosen, and I would love you to listen to mine, but make sure you've chosen a podcast [00:32:00] that gives you a daily dose of mindset and an inspiration. Because how you approach your day having a morning practice. For me, I have a morning practice of prayer. I have a morning practice of journaling.

I have a morning practice of listening to a podcast. Then of course I go work out and I get back and I start my day around five 30 and I usually am in the office or able to start calls around eight 30. So for that three hours in the morning between taking my kids to school and getting myself through my daily morning rituals, it sets me up to have the most impactful day possible.

And I see many women entrepreneurs burning themselves out before they get started to stop halfway through their journey because they haven't nurtured themself enough to keep going. And [00:33:00] when people say, I can't afford to nurture myself, I have no time, what do I do? The three things that I found that have the biggest impact on my mindset and on my day and how I perform is those three daily rituals where I wake up and I do my prayers or my dedication.

Some people do gratitude or affirmations. I do my journaling. So I really write down here's what my day's gonna look like today. Here's what I'm calling forward. Here's my future self that I'm bringing into today. My future self energy of who I'm going to be in the world. And then I'm gonna spend some time listening to someone who inspires me.

And having that podcast, that daily affirmation that dose of positivity from someone else. As you're getting ready in the morning, you can be getting ready and listening to a podcast. It's powerful.

Priscilla Shumba: Yeah. cause sometimes you think, oh, if I just wake up and get straight to [00:34:00] work. And actually to have that sort of sustainable rhythm, and like you said, keeping that joy is really important to not getting to that point of why am I doing this?

Is this even worth it? I could be doing something else. I like that you mentioned that you also experienced that. 'cause a lot of people think, oh Tracy she can have experienced that. 'cause, things worked out for her. But I like that you mentioned that you also had those moments of you feeling like you wanna quit and that mindset work is really important.

I wanted you to talk to the founder who's maybe at a million dollars,

Tracy Holland: first of all. I started this conversation out with saying that the numbers don't really matter. And I say that knowing that when you look back on the history of Hatch Beauty and where we started, I think our first year we did 2.5 million the second year, 10 million in the third year, like 15 and then 50 and then onward to a hundred, I think it was by the year five and a half or six.

And we continued at that pace pretty [00:35:00] much up until I sold the business. And what I would say is the stress level was the same throughout all those years. No matter the number, the stress concerns or the epicenter for the causation of the stress was different depending on what year we were in.

And so there's never a there. That's what I want everyone to hear. There's no there. Meaning if you're at a million dollars loving what you do and you're excited to get to work and you're fired up about building your business, 10 million's gonna feel awesome. And yes, it's so possible. AI makes it even more possible today, more than ever before.

So it is the biggest opportunity of a lifetime that everybody's in right now. And that's why inside of Inner Fifth, we spend so much time talking about live streaming. We call it live stream selling, but [00:36:00] it's not selling. It's live stream connecting. And once you build an audience, once you build a community, once you build momentum, you can really sell anything.

And so your investment in live streaming and building community is all about eventually being able to sell something. But it's not about selling from day one, it's about building. The universe right now is providing so much opportunity for people to make money and make money from their homes, make money part-time.

It's like the sky's the limit, but you have to be disciplined on where you're spending your time and ensure that you are thoughtful about being focused on your vision. And so I would say to the founder who's looking at a million dollars, if she hates what she's doing at a million, who cares? If she has 10 million, she's gonna still hate it because the stresses are the same, even though the root of the cause of the problem may be different.

Priscilla Shumba: Now you [00:37:00] mentioned ai. Both in terms of as a way to work through your mindset. You mentioned nowadays there is a way that you can be coached through ai and you also are talking about AI is the opportunity for businesses right now. Now most founders are looking at AI and are not quite sure 

Tracy Holland: Yeah, AI is one of the biggest gifts that we've been 

given. I 

think in our lifetime, we as entrepreneurs should be so grateful. What we can do now utilizing AI tools and infrastructure would've been millions of dollars in overhead and staffing five years ago. And so when I look at what we have integrated even inside of our own business intelligence processes, we've been using AI inside of our Goodwill Brands business since 2021, and our tools have just gotten bigger and more.

Expanded, but our tech team and our head of our it, our CIO, he [00:38:00] comes from AI from from 2017 he started coding and being really deeply embedded in ai. So it's a big part of who we are and how we think. We're always looking for processes that we can take out of the process of building something and put it into an AI process. And I would say to other founders, it is something that is mission critical for you to explore, study, and understand on every level how to utilize AI for your business in every area of your business. And I'm right now a huge fan of Claude. That's probably my number one resource. I don't know how people , don't use it or how they live without it, because it's that important to me.

But we use many AI tools across the board for marketing, for CRM, for retention for copy, for legal, for [00:39:00]strategy, for assortment, for pricing. All of all of what we do, we utilize that.

Priscilla Shumba: Yeah. It is the gift of our time. Definitely. Tracy now, you mentioned live streaming.

Tracy Holland: That's one vehicle. So TikTok 

is one vehicle, whatnot's a vehicle. Instagram and Facebook is another vehicle. QVC is another vehicle, HSN In China, I just got back from China where I was there for 10 days studying the live streaming business and industry. They're using Red Note and they're using Alipay.

all of these different tools are allowing us to have deep connection with our customers and can create community and connection. And that community and connection is allowing us to then gain connection with people to sell things to them. But I don't like this idea of people saying, oh, it's livestream selling.

It happens to be livestream selling [00:40:00] as you groom and cultivate your relationship with your user and your viewer. But frankly, without connection and trust first, it's really hard to sell someone something right. And that's why I love live streaming, because whether you're a service-based business or you're a product-based business, having regular, just like if you were gonna go watch a television show and you know that your favorite show is on TV at nine o'clock at night on a Friday, or it's on at 8:00 AM on a Saturday morning, you tune in knowing, okay, I can watch it later.

But what if it's a football game? What if it's a live football game? Is it as fun to watch a rerun of a live game two days later when you already know everybody knows the score? No. Everybody wants to watch the live game. Why? Because they wanna be part of the community connection. They wanna be part of the mojo, the energy, the [00:41:00]excitement.

The same thing applies to live streaming when you start showing up on a regularly scheduled time. On a regular basis, and you show up and you present to your community and you speak to them and you connect with them and you hear them out and you talk together and you guys all share information or feedback that connects people to you and they'll come back every single day at the same time, same place, and wanna hear more. And that is where you start to build an opportunity to live, stream, sell,

Priscilla Shumba: Mm-hmm.

That distinction is important. 'cause I think a lot of people have, tried or at least put their foot in a little bit in, in going live and felt like, oh, this doesn't work. But I think that distinction that you made, it's not about the selling. You earn the right to sell, but it's about building that trust that connection.

Tracy Holland: I think the future's huge and understanding your customer, [00:42:00] having customer connection and live streaming and ai, digital marketing and tools. I think all of those things are mission critical to your success. If you're not spending an hour a day or listening to a podcast to better understand what's available to you, you're missing the boat because things are moving too quickly.

You can't possibly know everything. But you need to start being in rooms and around founders who are utilizing these tools in order to build their success because it's mission critical. It's like the best part of what, what whoops, is the best part of what we have in 2026. And so utilize these tools and create wealth for yourself.

it's at your fingertips right now because it's so new. Did you know only 10% of the US population right now is utilizing AI in any meaningful way? 10%. Which is incredible to me when you think about right. The landscape is going to [00:43:00] be vast, it's a great opportunity to learn now and not just decide AI is bad, or AI is evil, or AI doesn't work, or, it is so important to building out your business plan.

Priscilla Shumba: That's so important Tracy, being part of a community, things are moving too fast for one person to try and keep up with what's happening, but being plugged into a community of people that either has those people or has access to people who are bringing them, sort of what they need to know because it's such a vast, uh, space right now.

I think, uh, Tracy.

, We've talked about how to get to a million the cash flow. We've talked about, sticking to the vision to get to the 10. And now when people think about a hundred million, you mentioned that the stress is the same. The source of the stress might be different, but when we talk about a hundred million,

Tracy Holland: I would say that every single business has the same structure or rules, which is generally 60 to 70% [00:44:00] of your revenue is coming from a handful of your top five to 10 clients, or your top five or 10 biggest retailers. So when you start to think about how do you get there, it's the multiplier effect.

Is landing one big retailer on one big client and then utilizing that retailer or that client to get the next one. And then to get the next one and to get the next one. And I can give you a million different examples of different businesses that I advise. And I have one business that I advise who has a very famous client roster.

And that fair, famous client roster as big and robust when they were in the beginning stages. 'cause they only had one famous person on the roster, right? But that one famous person got them the next one and the next one and the next one. And the same theory applies to retail and to. Building out your [00:45:00] revenue base is thinking about if you take a look right now at your business and you pull out your revenue and then you pull out your top 10 biggest clients that attribute to that revenue number, I want you to look at who is it that's contributing the most to that revenue.

And take those out of the mix and take a really solid look at how do you nurture those relationships? How do you keep those intact? How do you support those nurtured relationships? And then who do you have assigned to those big business deals so that you will make sure that whoever's managing those accounts or managing that business is giving the biggest amount of TLC possible.

And then thinking about how do you mimic that and how do you leverage that? In many ways, going to my current clients and saying, can I have a testimonial? May I have a testimonial video from you? May I have some [00:46:00]referral from you so that I can use this referral in my press release or in my marketing materials or on my website is so valuable because that's what's gonna win you more business.

And so when people say, how do you get to 10 million? You have to go back and pull out your revenue, look at your top 10 clients, pull those out, and take a look at how you're managing that, those relationships, and then mimic and scale it.

Priscilla Shumba: I think when people listen to this is gonna be a really good episode, Tracy, because I think you cut through a lot of the fluff that's out there for people to really think clearly about what it is that they're trying to do and where they're trying to go and how to get there, how to multiply things that they can get there.

To finish this off, Tracy, if I could please just do a rapid fire round with you.

What does scaling expose?

expose

Tracy Holland: Probably where you're best suited in the business. Not everyone's good at everything. Know your strengths and know your [00:47:00] weaknesses. And scaling definitely shows weaknesses fast and where you should be focused. And then know, thyself. Know thyself and stay in your lane and then hire the best talent you possibly can to take over the areas of the business that are not your strength.

Fast is your number one investment. 

making, 

Priscilla Shumba: What matters most in building a brand?

Tracy Holland: Uh, cash , making sure you have enough cash flow and figuring out your margins and making sure you have enough reserve to build and scale. 

Priscilla Shumba: What was the most enjoyable stage of building Hatch Beauty.

Tracy Holland: Um, Probably finally selling

it and moving on. And that business was incredibly vibrant and. We had amazing employees and we had so many wins and [00:48:00] so many successes. But it was a very challenging structure and a very challenging operating agreement. And so I think the finally transitioning that over to a new buyer and a new company allowed it to do its next generation of growth and success, and that was really cool to watch.

Priscilla Shumba: what's one belief you had at 10 million that you had to let go or a new belief that you needed to get to a hundred million? 

Tracy Holland: Great question. This is very

key 

who you have around you at 10 million in terms of staff and key people. And or advisors looks very different than when you're at a hundred million and recognizing that $10 million number, the people who wear multiple hats and who are really good at lots of things and are running around doing it all really need to find a [00:49:00] replacement role with someone who has a vertical expertise in their area.

So replacing your top talent generally is must have or must do. And the second piece of it is your advisors are very different. So your CPA firm, your law firm, your m and a firm, your advisory council, and that's probably one of the most important things to build in the very beginning, many times looks quite different from one, from one to 10 million than it does at a hundred million or above.

Priscilla Shumba: Oh, really? Interesting. Thank you for that. Now, what's the one boring discipline 

Tracy Holland: a boring 

discipline. 

I don't do anything 

boring, so I don't know. , I have zero input for you on that. If it's boring and I have to do it, I'm gonna hire someone to replace me to do it, because if it's boring and I have to do it repetitively on a day in, day out basis, I am not serving the [00:50:00] company and I should be replaced.

Priscilla Shumba: thank you for that. That's interesting because people say gotta get used to doing the boring stuff if you're, if you're gonna be successful. And of course, nobody likes to do anything that's boring. So I'm, I'm, I'm glad you, you said that Tracy.

what did this level of success change in your

Tracy Holland: It's changed how I date.

So thinking about dating and meeting a partner and what you share, what you don't share, how much you share, when you share that comes into play as you can imagine. And I would say being thoughtful about how much I share and who with whom I share staying focused on just keeping my vision to myself and ensuring that I am executing on it, holding myself accountable before I go out and share those things.

I'm also probably more thoughtful about that because . When you are building a business, you're going to fail. Everyone does. And you may have to do it a couple [00:51:00] times before you get back up, but eventually you'll be successful. And then once you're successful, everybody thinks you had an overnight success.

And the funny thing is like it's never that way. It's always years and years of trying and failing and trying and doing it differently. So I think at the level where you've had success and all of a sudden you've done it many times, keeping your inner circle tight is very important. 

Priscilla Shumba: the last question, Tracy, is that for the founder who's thinking, I want to build a hundred million dollar brand today, and I know for you, you say the numbers are not important, but to the founder who's thinking that way, what of what you, see that's happening out there, would you say oh, maybe pick this or think about doing this because of all the opportunity that exists today?

Tracy Holland: Definitely livestream selling. Definitely livestream. Community

building. Show up on time, be regular. Be consistent. If you're gonna do nine to 11 or nine to 12 live streaming every day, do [00:52:00] it. Don't say I'm not gonna do it 'cause I only have 20 people on today. I only have 30 people. I only have 40 people.

No, you're going to show up and be consistent because that consistency is what is going to bring you the flywheel. And also utilizing all these AI tools, making sure that you're really being thoughtful about how you can leverage these tools to start to cut overhead and to have faster response time and be more successful is really important.

Priscilla Shumba: Thank you for that, Tracy. please, if someone wants to connect with you or learn more about what you do, where can they go? Tracy?

I don't do one-offs

connections 'cause I couldn't, otherwise it would be a full-time job. but I, anyone check out what we do at Inter fifth. I do. Inter fifth.com. I-N-N-E-R, fifth F-I-F-T-H. We have an accelerator for female entrepreneurs and it's a huge flywheel and has been growing and growing with amazing women [00:53:00] entrepreneurs that are looking for digital strategy go to market strategy, consumer strategy, and livestream selling strategy. So I highly recommend taking a look at that. This year is very focused on digital strategy and live streaming. We have a cohort that starts every quarter, so it's only $997 per quarter to join and you can learn everything we're learning and it's very impactful. And we have a very active Slack channel where people are involved with each other's businesses.

And then potential to Powerhouse is my podcast and anyone can take a listen for free and hear what it is that I believe. More information on how I think about building and scaling. I think that's a really important thing to start to rely on other people who have done it before you more successfully and learn from them so you don't make the same mistake.

Oh, thank you so much, Tracy. It's been an amazing conversation. I'll link those two things below. Please do check out inner fifth.com [00:54:00] and check out, uh, Tracy's podcast. I'll also put that the link below. It's been a pleasure. I hope you will come back and, and talk to us again, 

Tracy Holland: thank you I, appreciate you Have a good week.