ep. 16 - HOW TO LAUNCH AND SCALE AN AUTHENTIC BRAND WITH ROOSHY ROY, CO-FOUNDER & CEO OF AAVRANI
Rooshy Roy is the co-founder and CEO of AAVRANI, an Ayurvedic beauty brand that unites Indian rituals with modern science. In this episode, Rooshy discusses how she recognized feelings of complacency during her time in graduate school and soon after took control to make a change. She shares how she is mentally prepared to take the leap into entrepreneurial life and the ever-evolving journey she's been on since. From testing products to testing her limits, Rooshy peels back the curtain on what it takes to build an authentic brand and business.
Lisa and Rooshy also discuss:
How she overcame imposter syndrome and leveraged her Indian-American background to create her business
How she fundraised for her startup and the types of investors she targeted
How she’s developed as a leader and the hurdles that come along with managing a growing team
The process of working with chemists to take a product from idea to market and how to find an optimal product/market fit
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Lisa Carmen Wang 0:08
A bad bitch takes charge of her body, her boundaries, and her bank account
Welcome back bad bitches. You are listening to the BAD BITCH EMPIRE. This is Lisa Carmen Wang and today I'm here with Rooshy Roy. She's the co-founder and CEO of AAVRANI, an Ayurvedic beauty brand that unites Indian rituals with modern science. She's a first-generation Indian American, a bad bitch entrepreneur. And today we're going to be talking about what it's like to really come into your own authentic voice, the struggle that often immigrants or immigrant children have in juggling the American culture with their parent’s culture, and you know, what is it like to overcome that impostor syndrome and really become an unleashed the bad bitch, you are in the most powerful version of yourself. So Ruchi, welcome to the bad bitch empire.
Rooshy Roy 1:09
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited for this conversation.
Lisa Carmen Wang 1:13
So just take us back to your childhood. And I always think it's important to know who you were before you became the bad bitch you are today,
Rooshy Roy 1:22
So I was born and raised in the suburbs of Detroit. My parents are immigrants from Kolkata and India. And so I grew up, basically feeling like I had one foot in each culture in the house, it was very much preserved of the Indian culture that my parents were familiar with. So we ate with our hands, we use different kinds of ingredients, we had different rituals and practices than all my American friends in the neighborhood. And then at the same time at school, and the activities I was involved in, I was oftentimes the only person of color in the room or in the situation. So I pretty much grew up feeling like I didn't have a real sense of belonging in either group. Of course, at school, I didn't look like anyone else. But at home and in the Bengali community that my parents cultivated, I still felt like an outlier. Because I wasn't a good little Indian girl, I was very rebellious, I was very outspoken, pretty mischievious, I was always like, pulling pranks on people for a reaction or because I was bored or restless. So I was always getting in trouble. I felt like not having that sense of real belonging, or a sense of pride in my identity really fueled me later in my life. And today to really figure out what that means to me and create my own sense of belonging through my company and what I do now.
Lisa Carmen Wang 2:58
Yeah, so then tell us about Ronnie, what was the genesis for your company,
Rooshy Roy 3:03
I grew up creating a lot of my own beauty treatments, a part of that culture that my parents preserved was in making your own formulas. So with ingredients from the kitchen, like turmeric, neem honey, we would make our own face masks or own hair masks. So these little things that I learned and picked up on, I just, I'd never really appreciated it because I'd never talk about it outside of home. It wasn't cool. It wasn't glamorous, it wasn't the kind of beauty that people were talking about, or gravitating towards. And that kind of beauty was wasn't one that my parents even allowed me to get involved in. So like getting perms or highlights in your hair, wearing glitter eyeshadow, the kinds of things that people defined as beauty when I was growing up, it wasn't allowed for me. And so as I got older and kind of realized that a lot of the what I define as beauty is really just taking care of myself and being the healthiest, fullest version of myself. That's what ends up appearing the most beautiful externally. And so I started integrating a lot of those ingredients and formulas back into my life in my lower 20s When I was working in finance, and that's when my lifestyle was pretty shitty, who I was like, barely sleeping, eating burgers and wings takeout every day, and then wondering why my skin was inflamed and reacting. And so spending a lot of money on fancy brands and formulas that cost a lot but weren't really doing anything for me. That's what was the impetus for kind of returning to my roots and the stuff that worked for me before. And then as luck would have it when I started business school in 2017, five years ago now, I met my now co founder on the second day of school. I didn't go in thinking I was going to start a company at all I just wanted to get out of finance and figure out what I could do with my life. And as he was telling me about his experience, also in finance, he was investing in beauty brands. And his most recent experience was in a brand called Tata, that I hadn't heard of at the time, but now is huge. It's beautiful. It's amazing. It's a Japanese inspired brand. And he told me how that founder brought these Japanese rituals and ingredients to the US in a luxury format. And that's when the light bulb just went off. I'm like, Oh, my God, Justin, there are all these ingredients and rituals that are so sacred to my culture that haven't been brought here, either. And within two weeks of that conversation, we transferred all of our business school tuition into a joint savings account, took out loans that I'm still paying off for business school, and just never looked back. That was sort of the first leap into getting started.
Lisa Carmen Wang 5:52
Okay, there's so much to unpack there. But I want to talk about that last part, which is taking that leap with your co founder so quickly. For a lot of entrepreneurs, I mean, choosing the right business partner is very, very important decision. So how did you guys partner? Exactly, yeah. And you're signing a legal contract, you know, sharing a bank account right off the bat. So what was it about that initial, like a friendship or that that really sparked you to feel comfortable enough to say, you know, what we're gonna like, all eggs in this one basket?
Rooshy Roy 6:28
Truthfully, I wasn't 100% Sure. But it was one of those things where I kind of realized that I was in a place in my life where I had the ability to get started on something. Yes, it was, like all my savings. But in the grand scheme of things, I was 27. And I had the flexibility to take a risk. And I was in an environment that was going to support me, I, you know, thought in the back of my mind, if this thing fails, I'll just go back to my old life or recruit for another normal corporate job, like when else am I going to have a couple of years to really try my own thing. And then on top of that, here, I have this person who is just as excited as I am to do this with me. And his energy was just I could tell it was good for me. Yeah, the first I remember in that conversation, I kept coming up with potential roadblocks and problems like, well, where would we even make it like, how would we get started? And His attitude was always like, we'll figure it out, we'll get a manufacturer, I even thought like, the first silly thing was like, how are we going to be a real business? Like, how are we going to get incorporated, and he was like, well, Stripe has this program, we apply to it, it's $500. And they'll, they'll make us a C Corp, but all these things that I was like, I needed to get out of my own head. And I needed somebody to push me in that kind of direction. And that was the energy that he gave me. So I just I took a leap. And I was like, if I don't bet on myself, now, when am I ever going to do it?
Lisa Carmen Wang 8:03
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really important thing. Because a lot of people end up in, especially in the early career, you know, very few of us know what it is that we want to do when we start our careers and then find ourselves in a place where we see that the road that we're going down either, isn't what we wanted, isn't authentic to us, just doesn't feel right. And then sometimes people probably often will just stay there because they don't know what else to do. And so do you feel like you've always had this sort of mindset of like, why not? Let me just try, or was this particular a different situation?
Rooshy Roy 8:43
I have not always had that mindset. And if anything, I would say, the longer I was staying in finance, the harder it was to convince myself to even go to business school, because at that point, you're making a certain amount of money, you're on track, for a certain trajectory in your career, that the opportunity cost gets bigger and bigger, which is why I think it gets more challenging for people. It's not that you're too old to ever do something, it's that you're just too ingrained in your existing way of thinking about things. I think, for me, it was a combination of just feeling really suffocated, and what I was doing and kind of being ready to let that go as like, it's definitely not this. So how am I serving myself by like staying in this situation. And then also, it was that feeling of being in school, like, it wasn't like, I quit my job and was like, I'm going to just figure this out without a sense of security. I think being at school and being in quote, unquote, MBA students gave me this sense of comfort, and like stability, and I didn't have to go around and say, you know, I'm the founder and CEO of a company just yet. If I was I was like, pretty shy about it. I would just say like, oh, I'm in school. I wouldn't tell people what I was doing yet. Like I could tell it was a quiet bully. confident in it, yeah. But I was just really pushing myself outside of my comfort zone just to see what could happen. And I think people forget, like, they imagined like, oh my gosh, my whole life is going to turn upside down with this thing. A bond, try to remind myself of it. So it's a roomy mantra is, how do you know that turning your life around? Isn't for the better? How do you know that that kind of shift isn't going to be a better outcome? And that's where I was just saying to myself, like, hey, it can only go up from here, I was in a pretty low place at the time I went for it.
Lisa Carmen Wang 10:33
Yeah, I mean, we have that in common in that I started out in, in finance, Wall Street, also right out of college. And then I think I barely lasted two years before, I was like, you know, and also felt that same sort of suffocation. And, like, if I had creative freedom, I could do so much more. But yeah, and I think leaving early enough was like, I wasn't making that much money just yet, because I was still like, at the, like, lower levels. And so, but I didn't go back to school, I ended up going to the startup bootcamp, and I was like, I'm gonna be CEO of something. I don't know what it is. But we'll figure out like, I'm sure there's a problem solve, and then develop my skills. And I ended up going to a, I became a chief of staff, actually, to a tech CEO. Like learning through that, and then finally launched my first thing, but yeah, I think a lot of it is what you touched upon is just like finding some sort of good balance between risk and stability, but also realizing that it's like, if you're not happy with where you are, sometimes just the fear of the unknown. You have a different life that will keep you complacent. Totally. Yeah. So once you had then decided to partner up with your co-founder, and you put all your savings into this, what happened next,
Rooshy Roy 12:03
it's been a volatile journey, I would say, because I also got to know my co founder, as we were building the company, it ended up being a pretty fortuitous experience, for me, at least because it forced me to start developing personally pretty quickly. Like, I don't know if you do this, but when with your, with a partner with a personal partner, if they piss you off, like, you can just like be short with them or like not talk to them, then they sense you're kind of mad, and they're like, are you mad, and then you're like, No, and then a day goes by and they're like, you can't hold it in anymore. And then you just kind of burst or like whatever it is, like I had a pretty immature kind of approach to interpersonal relationships, because I was so like, robotic and in like stoic and finance, where I'm like, no one's ever gonna know how I feel, I'm just gonna say yes, and keep my head down. And now I'm here in this environment, where I'm working in this very close relationship with this person, and I don't even know how to communicate my needs. Because if I never really learned how to do that, I would either get emotional about it, or, you know, not have the confidence to assert myself. And so I learned from a very early part of building the company from day one, that if I want to do certain things, and if I have certain expectations that I need to articulate those things, I can't just, you know, get annoyed and hope that they pick up on that and then ask me if I'm that, you know what I mean? Like it like little fire in my ass in terms of like, developing as a, as a personal professional. And the first thing we did was really enlisted a team of chemists to help me translate the formulas that I knew and loved growing up into ready to use shelf stable formats. I wanted a very unique balance of ultra clean and natural, but something that actually lasted in a jar for a period of time so that we could scale this thing and deliver it to the world. And so I spent the first year pretty much exclusively focused on product and formulation. We were able to launch a beta version in the summer between the two years of business school, so instead of doing an internship somewhere else, which is typically what an MBA student does, we stayed in Philly and launched a roni.com and just started building our social media platforms getting the word out there, attraction immediately sort of took off. We didn't get product market fit right away. But there was that sense of like, we were onto something here. As soon as we ran out of money, which was after the first couple of years and the first big production order. We started fundraising from family and friends that grew into a seed round that grew into our Series A recent recently and it's just been a roller coaster of a ride since
Lisa Carmen Wang 14:56
amazing. So I'm thinking about the formulation of the brand and what that was like. So do you have any background in chemistry, or like,
Rooshy Roy 15:06
literally no, I did the worst in science. That was like an early decision where I'm like, I literally don't know what the fuck I'm doing with this, I need this is the part of the business, I'm not going to skimp on and I need to hire experts. So my knowledge went as far as what are the individual ingredients that I would use in making the treatments, but then I don't know how to balance that out to get to an experience of using the product in the way that I want. I don't know what ingredients, additional ingredients help or hurt the product in any kind of way. So that's where we have a team of five chemists based out in our labs in SF who are really leading the charge on product, I give them the vision of what I want. And they they start and they just create it. And then once we have the first formula, we iterate from there. So for example, with our turmeric, maths that took 16 iterations of the formula before we got to the final, because I would want to tweak the scent of it, the texture the way it It spreads on the skin, every subtle detail I was very meticulous about but I didn't know the science behind what got me there. So it was a very close relationship with that team, especially for that first year to get to get going.
Lisa Carmen Wang 16:23
And are you testing all the products on yourself? And then how long? Do you wait, you know, to see if there's any breakouts or anything that comes from any formulation?
Rooshy Roy 16:34
Yeah, so the thing about skincare is you need to use it consistently for at least three weeks before you know if it's good for you. I think nowadays, we're like so inundated with beauty products that we'll try something once and rely on that result to see if it works for us. It takes three weeks of consistent use and also the same, the same product. So it's even if you can't even be switching out one product in that routine during that three week time. So yes, I was testing on myself, then we had a couple of focus groups on campus, a bunch of my friends at at Penn, who I kind of curated based on different ethnicities, backgrounds, age groups, because I wanted this product to really work on a lot of people. And then we also had clinical trials run. So once I was satisfied with the product before it launches, we enlist a third party tester to have groups of people try the product and, you know, report back results on a daily basis. And that runs for another three weeks. So it's just constant testing going on. And many of the times something that I am inspired by in the beginning or an idea I have doesn't make it through the whole process because it just doesn't make sense from a pragmatic point of view. So about 30% of what I think of or imagined in the beginning actually comes through and product at the end.
Lisa Carmen Wang 18:03
And what's that ideation creative process for you is it like, one day you wake up, you're like, I would like a tumor.
Rooshy Roy 18:11
Not so much. So in the beginning, it was really just like the products that I in the formulas that I loved the most. So in India, the turmeric bass is just iconic, it's a part of our wedding ceremony. It's a part of our some religious practices. It's just ubiquitous in India. So I felt like if I was going to create an Indian-inspired beauty brand and turmeric mask is just a no-brainer as the first product. And then I built out the other three initial products around creating a ritual, one of the learnings that Justin had and his experience with beauty brands was having a full ritual or like a full routine so people could have a start to finish skincare regimen is a really great foundation for sharing the story of the brand and getting people to really immerse themselves in the Ayurvedic experience with one product, if you can do that, it's just a lot more challenging. So it was important for me to get a full regimen out there in the beginning. And then as I've built out the product, since it's a combination of my inspiration, but also feedback from our community. I only have one face and one skin type, right so I'm I can't predict everything that people want. But there's hydro cream, for example that we just launched that was based on feedback from our community because a lot of people with acne prone or more oily skin were unable to use the hydro web, the moisturizer I already had created, which is a coconut oil base. And they were asking for an alternative. So I basically went to our chemists like, Hey, this is the kind of product people need for this type. Like let's get started on iterating. So that was a very different approach but still in the vein of serving a very specific need.
Lisa Carmen Wang 19:58
What was the AHA ha moment for you, when you finally got to a point where you're like, Okay, this is going to last I found product market fit. Like we're going to keep going. Pretty much I
Rooshy Roy 20:11
didn't have that kind of conviction until we finished our Series A so like. It's always like a voice in the back of my head. That's just like any point like, like me does. The series A gave me the converted like okay, now at least we have like three years to test out some things be more long-term with our strategic thinking. But I'll be honest with you up until this year, it's very much been focused on growth and getting as much people using the products, trying new products, getting the feedback and way less about actual business mechanics. And now this year, I'm re re strategizing everything to set my business up for profitability in a certain timeframe. And way more strategic about the costs that go into the growth because we're in a different landscape at different times, even like five years ago, GTC was a whole different animal. So I'm just now have that ability to step back and be more long term. And I didn't really have that until the this last one
Lisa Carmen Wang 21:18
is, what were some of the push backs that investors had for you as you were raising your series A
Rooshy Roy 21:23
Oh, like everything? Where do I even start to niche? Nobody, like outside of Indian people will like it. So the TAM, so to speak was like in most people's eyes, basically equivalent to the Indian population here, which is just it's so wrong. It's just like not where I want to go with this. And for
Lisa Carmen Wang 21:43
listeners, Tam is total addressable market. So it's like how big and how many people would actually buy your product?
Rooshy Roy 21:51
That's correct. Yeah. And then I mean, I also got the, like, silly pushback on the branding is too masculine. How is it a woman's beauty product if it's blue? Okay,
Lisa Carmen Wang 22:03
did a man ask that? Of course,
Rooshy Roy 22:04
I mean, a man has everything, because the things like I mean, literally, there was a man, an old white man who was like trying to understand the customer acquisition journey. So he's like, so how do you know when a woman finishes her moisturizer to when you would enter her routine. And I'm like, that assumes that a woman only has one moisturizer at a time. Like, that's just not true. I have like six or seven. And during the year, they're like, as it's colder, I use a different profile product when it's warmer. And he's just like, oh, that's just silly, because he thought about it as like a pure C'mon, like toilet paper, you're not. You don't buy until you're done kind of thing. It's like that's how beauty even works. That's just not even the behavior of women, right? And beauty product? Like, where do I even go from here and this point of the conversation, so it was almost like some of their questions, were informing me more of like, you're just not the right investor here. So how did you figure
Lisa Carmen Wang 23:03
out who was the right investor for you, and ultimately, the ones who came into this round,
Rooshy Roy 23:09
I mean, I'm pretty proud to say that most of our cap table is South Asian investors and is comprised of them. So it's angels, family offices, a few smaller VCs. But I found that the people who resonated most with the mission of the brand which is to elevate the culture in a big way to make Irv, the globally accessible, it resonated the most with the people who understand it the most already. And that was like a lot of trial and error. Of course, in the beginning, we had thought that we would go to like traditional VCs, but the makeup of those teams, it's like mostly old white men. And it got to a point where I'm like, I'm just trying to roll this thing uphill, if I'm, if I'm trying to convince people who really just will never get it. Yeah. So people have started to understand it within the last five years. I will say the conversations I had earlier this year were much easier than the ones when we first started out because when we first started, we had to first convince people that I Aveda or Indian beauty was even a thing and even different enough to be a pillar of the brand back in 2017. It was like nobody was really buying into that I to first convince them of that as a category. And then why have radi but this time earlier this year, it was more like the fact that Indian beauty and IR Veda is a growing category and is really the next version of what we saw with Korean beauty and Kay beauty. That was more conceded. And now I only had to prove why AAVRANI is going to leave that why we are so great. Which is always an easier conversation to have than starting from zero like this is a moisturizer Yeah.
Lisa Carmen Wang 24:57
So for those who don't know, can you define for us? I have a Aida and what that means to you, and you know how people should understand it.
Rooshy Roy 25:04
Sure. So I Aveda is a holistic system of wellness. It embodies not just our skin but our whole being. It's Mind Body Soul related. So it means that the things that you're eating affect how you look how much you're sleeping, how well you're sleeping, that affects how you look, your mental health is a factor. So it's just extremely all-encompassing when it approaches beauty. And it includes holistic medicine, too. So it looks at food as medicine, it's extremely just plant-based and ingredient base. So if Vedic wisdom has been around for over 5000 years in South Asia, it's a whole system by which people pursue wellness. And interestingly, when the British colonized India, they kind of pushed higher VEDA underground because they impose the western approach to medicine. And that's where a lot of these rituals and treatments became way more anecdotal. So it got passed down through generations of women who are just doing it at home. But we don't have as much literature or evidence behind what actually works from a cumulative point of view. They're just like different regions lean on different ingredients. And that's a huge motivating factor for me to build a Roni to because it's like, Goop, and Gwyneth Paltrow know that turmeric is great, but unless there are Indian brands actually owning it, and being able to control the narrative, the history gets lost, the culture gets lost. So it's a really important part of what I'm building is to preserve that culture and our history in the communities that created it. Yeah, I
Lisa Carmen Wang 26:49
love that. Well, I also know that you've struggled with your culture, right? And just embracing that yourself, tell us about how that has affected your brand.
Rooshy Roy 26:59
In the beginning, like I said, when I first started Irani or working on Iranian 2017, I was personally more motivated by the business side of it. I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur, similar to you, I kind of always knew in the back of my mind, I was going to be a CEO, I just didn't know what I'm just like, I just want to run shit. And I know I'd be good. And it was when the idea came at school, I was like, This is it, this is going to be my unique contribution, like I'm like, perfectly positioned to do this business. But as you I'm sure can empathize with the exciting part of running a business that dwindles away pretty. not glamorous at all, especially when you're starting it yourself. It's just like, all you have our problems. And you just have to move everything you know, I'm shipping boxes, I'm cutting labels, I'm literally like measuring my jars to see how the dimensions of my labels to make my own stickers for this product. So I'm like doing all sorts of things, barely sleeping, I'm just like, this is not enough to keep me motivated. And in order to feel a deeper sense of purpose with this thing, I have to unlock my own connection to this. And even as I was going around, holding up the product, telling people about Rodney in those early days, I realized I was feeling increasingly disconnected from that brand. It didn't represent Ruchi. And it didn't feel authentic to my interpretation of the Indian culture. I had just hobbled together a brand based off what I thought people would expect out of an Indian brand and what I thought would perform well. So I added gold yellow gold accents, I had deep earthy green tones. So people would get that sense of natural and organic. I put in millennial pink because glossier was killing it. They were doing well with it. So it was like, all based on what other people wanted. And after we graduated from school in 2019, and moved back to New York and started building out the team, I was like, oh, fuck, if I'm gonna, like, really get behind this thing. Like, I'm not a student anymore. I'm like a founder full time, I need to feel this connection. And I don't. So I need to create a brand that is authentic to me. And in order to do that, I need to figure out who I am and what is my true alignment with the culture. What is my interpretation of it, how, how is it uniquely different growing up in America and having that influence and I'm proud of having that American influence on it, but it makes it look and feel much different than what I had already created. So I just started from scratch. I was like, What's my favorite color? It's this hyper blue. I've always gravitated towards it. I'm going to make that the baseline of the brand. I just like stopped overthinking so much and just really put myself into into the brand in a way that I wouldn't have had the confidence to do at the very
Lisa Carmen Wang 29:55
beginning. Yeah, well, what do you think it is that ultimately gave you the confidence To say, my voice, and my preferences matter more than what everyone else, or at least what I think everyone else expects of me and my brand,
Rooshy Roy 30:09
it was the my own sense of happiness with it. Like, I wasn't excited to really do it as much. I mean, like I said, I was excited by being the CEO. But that wasn't enough to keep me going. And I'm like, I can't do this much longer unless I feel that sense of connection. So I need to take three steps back before I can take four steps forward kind of thing.
Lisa Carmen Wang 30:32
Yeah, I definitely felt that before. And I think the tough part is when you are in that position, and you're like, why am I unhappy? It's like, am I being a complainer, because I have my own company, I'm starting my own brand, like so many people would kill to be in my shoes to be able to, like, turn this vision into a reality. And for some reason, I'm not happy. And like, who am I? Who am I to complain about anything? And then you go into this spiral of like, you know, what, is this what I signed up for?
Rooshy Roy 31:05
Exactly, exactly. But that, you know, that sense of like, who am I to be upset with this and like, I've kind of, it's taken a lot of practice, but I've stopped doing that, because that was the kind of toxic thinking that kept me in finance to be like, the number one thing I would always think of in finance, and like, so many people would die to have this job, you get replaced in a moment, like, how can you possibly think this is not enough? When it's enough for so many other people, you know what I mean? But then at the end of the day, it's like, you are inhabiting your body and your life. So unless you are you fix that first, like, it doesn't really matter what else is going on?
Lisa Carmen Wang 31:48
Yeah, yeah. So do you find that refreshing the brand was enough for you to be like, Okay, now I'm authentic. Now. I'm powerful. Let's go.
Rooshy Roy 31:58
So it was enough for me as like a first stepping stone of like getting that connection. But of course, there are like, there's still challenges every single day with the business and the brand, but at least I can stand behind the brand now and feel aligned with it and add that sense of alignment and integrity with the brand. It unlocks a competence in me that I otherwise would never have tapped into, which definitely propels the business. But I mean, I still face all sorts of challenges and disappointments that make me question, you know, what am I doing?
Lisa Carmen Wang 32:32
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think that's for me, it was also like, the even this the bad bitch Empire brand, right. And as I remember, it was like, the, my parents were actually the last people that I told them, like, I'm writing a book, like, Yay, writing a book. And then I, and I was like, so the press release is going out tomorrow. And what's the title of the book was called the bad bitch business Bible. And I'm launching this brand called the bad bitch empire. And then from there, it was just like, I think once I allowed myself to, to really embrace I was like, Wait, I've always been a bad bitch. This is my definition of a bad bitch. And like a woman who takes charge of her body or boundaries of bank account. And it's in the place of conservative. I mean, even like, the venture capital world is in some it's conservative, right? Like, women speak up and don't play by the playbook. You're automatically punished. And so like, even using the word bitch, openly huge, was like universal. Yeah, yeah. And then there are days I definitely feel like, Man, I do not feel like a bad bitch at all. Like, and then a small bit. Basic Bitch today and just like a pirate bitch. But yeah, like always, then going back to at least I know that this is a brand that came from a place of power and authenticity. And even though I have those up and down moments like everyone else does, it's like, at my core, that's still the bad bitch I was born to be.
Rooshy Roy 34:03
Exactly, exactly. And you underestimate, like, at least if you're proud of what you're doing. It like so much more will fall into place, then when you're not fully proud of what you're doing.
Lisa Carmen Wang 34:15
Yeah, yeah. So what are some of the challenges that you're still encountering today that you say,
Rooshy Roy 34:22
I would say a new or challenge that I'm still navigating is managing a team and growing a team. So there were five of us in the beginning of the year, and now there are 12 of us. And at least 60% of my time now is managing people and talking to people processes, and coming up with new initiatives or people trying to motivate them, keep them inspired. And it's like, this is not why I decided to start my own company right to manage, but it's just it's a part of the journey that I need to get through to then do more of what I want to do but think it's it's been a lot for me to come to terms with the fact that I'm just not at a stage of my business where I can be creative. Most of the time, I do need to do a lot of this stuff that just doesn't excite me as much. But I know that once I can get to the other side, it'll be worth it. But it's hard to get through.
Lisa Carmen Wang 35:25
Yeah, yeah. I mean, managing people is so tough, especially when it's your team, your product, your baby, what do you see what is the hardest part of managing, you know, a team that's doubled in size?
Rooshy Roy 35:39
It's, it's really understanding how complex communication becomes with each new person you add, you actually exponentially grow the amount of opportunities for miscommunication and gaps. And so the biggest challenge I found is like, I need to change my leadership style, because before I was able to sustain having very intimate relationships with every single person, so that ultimately they were, like, all aligned and clear on what we're doing. But I'm, I'm one person, I can't do that with 12 people anymore. And so learning even my own boundaries, right of like, okay, I'm not going to be best friends with everyone here. We're, we're not a family, I fucking hate when people say teams or family, it's like, we're not though, like, something's wrong, no, something's I'm not gonna tell you about my personal life. And that's okay. And so much of the early grind was honoring people in that very familial way. And I'm just transitioning away from that kind of cadence. And that kind of leadership style, that has been a big challenge, and just even finding my own voice of like, I'm the type of person where I'll be like, Okay, you do this way. But if you have other ways to do it, please let me know. Like, I'm not an expert. I'm figuring this out as I go to. But then there has to be a line between my expectation and somebody else's delivery, right? Like, I still need to be very direct with like, I expect this by the end of this day, like, I don't really care what you think about it, you know what I mean? Like, it's really tough. And it's back to like that personal development thing. It's like to look someone in the eye and in a respectful way, be like, Hey, this is just unacceptable, that that took me a really long time. And that's something I learned this year.
Lisa Carmen Wang 37:36
Do you feel like your leadership style now is more direct? Or like, Do you have any natural like, people pleasing or like,
Rooshy Roy 37:46
it's more direct than it's been. So I would say, like, slowly improving. But of course, I have that people-pleasing thing, and then it's like, I'm so not a people-pleaser in my life. So it's like a little bit surprising to me that I'm this way with my team. But I think at the end of the day, it comes down to this sense of like, I want them to be so happy to work here. And I want them to feel proud of Iranian the way that I feel. And knowing that sometimes a hard conversation or being like critical is going to actually foster that respect. It's not going to take it away. That it I'm still internalizing that in many ways.
Lisa Carmen Wang 38:27
Yeah. I think I'm excited to just hear about your journey as you grow and become you know, leader of a larger team and how how big do you see AAVRANI growing like, what is what's your empire state of mind? When you think of like the BAD BITCH EMPIRE that you are building?
Rooshy Roy 38:43
Yeah, so I mean, I think we, we can grow extremely huge with this team we have now so I don't plan to grow much more from a team perspective. I think there's tons we can do from a brand awareness perspective and growing the Empire. A part of what I'm working on now is launching into hair and bringing iron VEDA to haircare and then I want to branch out into body care as well to be just a full iron Vedic destination for all things beauty and I want the category of Irv the to to exist and Ronnie in many ways is leading that charge because unless there are a bunch of excellent brands in Ayurveda performing the way that we saw even with Kay beauty like there are entire sections of Kay beauty now at Sephora, right but in order to get to those top 50 brands, we've got to have a lot more more momentum right now on Irv that being talked about educated on brands coming out. So I just my mission with Ronnie is to spearhead that charge of making Ira the category that the whole world enjoys
Lisa Carmen Wang 39:55
amazing. If you had to look back at your journey and tell your Former self give her some advice. What would you tell her?
Rooshy Roy 40:03
There's a rabbi who says, let me fall, if I must fall, the one who I will become will catch me. I think I would tell, like tell her that and that sense that every little like, failure, challenge, disappointment, all of that, like it feels so much worse in the moment than it really is. And when you zoom out, and you realize how those things actually end up directing you to towards where you're going to be, you can be just so much more at peace. And so I think I just I've had so much more anxiety, so much more sleepless nights, I've had ulcers in my stomach, like my stress has been crazy, but a lot because it's self imposed. Like I hold myself to a really high standard. And there's a difference between holding yourself to a high standard and being respectful and kind to yourself. And so I would remind her that like, it's all happening, how it's supposed to like, yeah.
Lisa Carmen Wang 41:02
I mean, that's it. That's, it seems like something that's not just to tell your former self, but your current
Rooshy Roy 41:08
yourself. Yeah. So yeah,
Lisa Carmen Wang 41:11
yeah. Because it's, I think it's like, especially as an entrepreneur, you're like, the troughs are like, really low, really low.
Rooshy Roy 41:20
And people forget, like, the way the world works, the way karma is the way the universe is constructed, you're high, the peak of your highest highs are going to be to the same degree as your lowest lows. So
Lisa Carmen Wang 41:35
don't get it, dude,
Rooshy Roy 41:36
the amplitude, yes, that's the right word. So you don't get to enjoy the crazy high highs without having gone through equally low lows. And honestly, that's why people don't do this, right? That volatility itself is something that demands a sense of internal stability that is just like, monk like that. I'm still trying to, you know, pursue and I think I'll be pursuing my whole life. But that sense of detachment is like, that's the key to everything, if you can just step back and kind of observe that. It just makes everything so much easier. But especially in the beginning, when it's like low, low, low, even lower is just like how much can I would stand before, you know, I need a win here. You know,
Lisa Carmen Wang 42:22
do you meditate,
Rooshy Roy 42:23
I do. So I meditate every day for like, it's the first 10 minutes of my day. The two changes I made in my life over the last couple years that have been amazing is not having my phone in my bedroom, because it's the first thing I'll start scrolling through and then literally lose track of time answering emails and stuff. So I don't look at my phone. And then I immediately meditate first before I brush my teeth, make my breakfast all of that.
Lisa Carmen Wang 42:48
And how do you like Do you have any sort of type of meditation or thing that you focus on? Or how do you get started,
Rooshy Roy 42:57
I'm very restless and my mind and like just scattered all the time. So I find just focusing on my breath coming to it. Like I have a certain spot in my living room with a chair where I'll just sit in the position of right and be completely still and just literally start counting my breath. Because I'll wake up and start being on what should I wear? What I have this meeting today that I'll already start preparing for all those things. And it's like, you have to start with the present moment and your body and your breath and it'll get you. It makes everything more clear. So there have been times that during those 10 minutes, I'm literally just counting. There have been times I've like counted up to like 3000 something, it's just, that's the way to like, focus. If I stopped doing that, then I lose the whole purpose of it. So it's not fun or glamorous or very exciting to look at but it helps. Yeah,
Lisa Carmen Wang 43:53
yeah, I mean, there's there's definitely a lot of parallels and like, I feel the same way restless, whatnot. And I've started doing bike rides, so I do morning. But even then I've started to get restless not listen to, you know, business podcasts, I'm like late, but sometimes just getting even just like entertaining podcasts or just music and it's like, at least I'm focused on the road ahead. And then I'm just biking and my body is moving.
Rooshy Roy 44:23
Yeah, yeah,
Lisa Carmen Wang 44:23
that's a wonderful one. Yeah. Okay, so final question for you. What does it mean to you to be a bad bitch?
Rooshy Roy 44:32
I would say a bad bitch is someone who knows who she is and is proud of who she is. It doesn't matter where you are in life or what you do with your life. If you bag groceries. If you're a construction worker, if you run an actual empire, being a bad bitch is completely internal and up to you and it's the energy that you exhibit. So everything starts from within and it starts with you believing that you are bad pitch and I mean I'm saying you'd be surprised but I guess why should you be once you and have it that fully people step in line, right and then when you have that kind of energy and people know that you're really that confident, it moves mountains so a bad pitch is totally up to you to decide if that's where you want to be.
Lisa Carmen Wang 45:22
I love it. Thank you so much Rishi for sharing your journey your lessons and for continuing to build your empire.
Rooshy Roy 45:31
Thank you Lisa for having me. This is so fun
Lisa Carmen Wang 45:39
if you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot tag me at least a Carmen Wang and make sure you check out the bad bitch empire.com for events, courses, crypto and other cool shit. Thanks for tuning in to the bad bitch empire.