topic Re: OMG with tatcha in Beauty

OMG with tatcha

gootay — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 03:02:59 GMT

I have been wondering why I never see the owner of tatcha anymore. I Google who is the owner and it says Unilever bought out tatcha for 500 million. Wow that sucks. I guess true owners don't stay. I remember when she was soooooo passionate about it???? I guess money wins out over everything 🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥

Re: OMG with tatcha

gootay — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 03:03:27 GMT

Re: OMG with tatcha

RoughDraft — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 03:17:15 GMT

I could see me getting passionate about five-hundred million dollars.

Re: OMG with tatcha

rms1954 — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 03:21:50 GMT

Yeah, about as believable as that phoney story about selling her engagement ring. I saw right through that one. Couldn't stand to watch her.

Re: OMG with tatcha

January121 — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 04:27:26 GMT

Like all the other brands that were sold Tatcha will now go down the drain!!! 😔

Re: OMG with tatcha

kitcat51 — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 04:53:58 GMT

How exciting that all her hard work paid off & the article I read stated she's staying with Tatcha & looks forward to growing the business...I wish her all the best.

Re: OMG with tatcha

KBEANS — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 05:41:12 GMT

They already changed the beautiful packaging and I get why, because of going green; but the packaging was awesome and also was nice to repurpose. I still have a wonderful box from an old set I bought. This time the items were carelessly thrown in the Q's shipping box. I still love Tatcha... so far. The same thing happened with Jamie Kern Lima, founder of IT Cosmetics, and Christina Carlino of Philosophy. They sold their companies to L'Oréal and Coty. I guess if you're offered a dump load of money you cash out. I heard Philosophy's fragrances really changed...for the worse. I never bought Philosophy before the change, so I don't know first hand, but I believe the many customers who complain. I don't think IT has changed, the items I've purchased seems the same, but who knows?

Re: OMG with tatcha

beach-mom — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 07:24:31 GMT

I think a lot of them have a "gimmick" to increase sales. I do like Tatcha's rice powder cleanser. But as far as the Geisha and the book- I don't doubt her story, but I met a Geisha in Kyoto (in a ladies' room) when I taught in Japan. We were both refreshing our makeup, and she was using Estée Lauder!

I also think some of these companies who buy out successful brands keep the original owner as a spokesperson for a contracted period of time, even though the original owner we saw many times might not have anything to do with the development of products any longer. Bobbi Brown is an example.

Re: OMG with tatcha

NYwoman — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 09:10:18 GMT

Well, so much for Cruelty Free anymore! No more Tactcha for me!

Re: OMG with tatcha

Still Raining — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 12:17:02 GMT

Good for her to build a business. Of course she was all about sales, which is OK too. Times change.

Re: OMG with tatcha

geezerette — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 12:53:34 GMT

I always assume that when the owner/developer of the product is no longer promoting their product(s), they've sold their company to a larger one.

If I use their products, I'm disappointed because normally the products end up being changed. But it happens more often than not with a successful small brand.

And quite honestly, I'd probably do the same thing if I were in their shoes.

But it's not always just about money. Running a successful business is very difficult and time consuming. It's your whole life. There are always crises to have to solve. Eventually you can just get tired. Or sick. Or legitimately have a personal (family) need. And when somebody comes along offering millions to relieve you of that stress, it makes you think twice. More than twice.😉

Re: OMG with tatcha

San Antonio Gal — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 12:54:23 GMT

@RoughDraft wrote:
I could see me getting passionate about five-hundred million dollars.

Yes @RoughDraft - She's living the dream. She built a business and sold it and is set for life. I would have done the same thing.

Re: OMG with tatcha

Major Shopper — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 12:52:43 GMT

@beach-mom Your story reminds me of when I was in France with my mom. We were on a tour and the French tour guide asked us what we used on our skin because it was so smooth!

I was laughing because, in America, we are supposed to believe that Europeans have the secret when it comes to skincare products!!!

Gotta love marketing!

Re: OMG with tatcha

millieshops — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 14:39:41 GMT

I never bought Tatcha so I'll never know if the sale changes the products, but I'm curious. Anyone know what kind of money the owner herself spent to get the company to that 500 million of value or whether she has to pay other investors back for their support? (Maybe I watch too much Shark Tank -- the sharks don't seem to like hearing their loans are going to a company with other big investors.)

Re: OMG with tatcha

beach-mom — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 17:25:34 GMT

@Major Shopper wrote:
@beach-mom Your story reminds me of when I was in France with my mom. We were on a tour and the French tour guide asked us what we used on our skin because it was so smooth!

I was laughing because, in America, we are supposed to believe that Europeans have the secret when it comes to skincare products!!!

Gotta love marketing!

@Major Shopper - That IS quite a compliment! I always thought that too! I spent a semester there during college.Of course being crazy about makeup I wanted to get something French - something I could afford! I went to a department store with my roommates and ended up with one blush. They also got some. I was really something LOL! When I came home and showed my mom, who was the reason I enjoyed makeup, she told me it was orange, not peach! I asked my best friend, who tried it, and there were two streaks of orange on her face! I kept it a long time, but never wore it again! I'd just take it out once in a while to look at! It WAS really orange- and I had worn it on a couple of dates while I was there!

I'd like to know what you and your mom used too!

Re: OMG with tatcha

Faceplacegirl — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 18:48:20 GMT

@beach-mom @Major Shopper Your stories remind me of a trip to Waikiki. I was on a trolley and next to me was a beautiful Japanese lady , hard to tell age, about 40’s or 50’s, who had the most beautiful flawless dewy skin. So I asked her what she wore, through hand signals pointed to her face. She pulled out her phone and showed me. I was expecting a hard to find Japanese product, but it was IT cosmetic bye bye foundation. I was REALLY,!! I personally don’t use it too thick and drying for my 58 yr old skin. Stay golden....

Re: OMG with tatcha

FiddleDeeDee — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 19:11:21 GMT

The whole point of starting and running a business is to make money. She saw an opening in the market for her product, was successful in growing it and then sold it to the highest bidder....that's what you do. I think people would rather see it go down in flames (because that happens with most businesses) than sell it while on top and make a tidy profit.

I don't understand that in ANY way.

Re: OMG with tatcha

Tadaki — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 20:41:05 GMT

I don't think that anyone resents someone making money from their product. What we regret is finding an innovative product that works for us, only to have it changed. Then we're on the hunt again. And with cosmetics, it happens over and over.

The beauty of a brand like Tatcha is the innovation and quality. Who knows if that will last? I definitely have not tried any of their new products since the sale.

Re: OMG with tatcha

Porcelain — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 21:30:07 GMT

@gootay wrote:
I have been wondering why I never see the owner of tatcha anymore. I Google who is the owner and it says Unilever bought out tatcha for 500 million. Wow that sucks. I guess true owners don't stay. I remember when she was soooooo passionate about it???? I guess money wins out over everything 🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥

Nobody goes into a business purely for passionate reasons. If all they had were passion, they wouldn't need or want to make a business out of it. Business is always at least partly about money as a means of exchange for distribution.

Vicky Tsai's business story is very bootstraps and inspiring. It wasn't just her engagement ring she gave up. She even moved back home.

"In 2009, Vicky Tsai had quit her job on Wall Street, sold her engagement ring, moved back home with her mom and started a beauty company out of her San Francisco garage.

Within six years, her company Tatcha was named the No. 2 fastest-growing, woman-led company on the Inc. 5000 list. The luxury skin care brand with fans in Kim Kardashian and Meghan Markle would go on to make $70 million in sales in 2018, according to Bloomberg, and was acquired by Unilever during the summer of 2019.

For most of this time of growth, Tsai never took a paycheck, and instead reinvested any earnings back into the company. She says this decision was fundamental to Tatcha’s start.

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t raise money in a meaningful institutional way,” Tsai tells CNBC Make It.

Part of this, the Harvard Business School grad says, is because there wasn’t a precedent for the type of company she wanted to build.

Tatcha products draw from generations-old beauty rituals of Japanese geishas and focus on a less-is-more approach. Tsai, who was on a flight layover in Japan and was at the time suffering from acute dermatitis, was drawn to the simple ingredients of the Japanese skin care ritual and wanted to create similar products free of parabens, synthetic fragrances, mineral oil and other potentially irritating ingredients.

“When we first started out, direct-to-consumer beauty wasn’t a thing, Asian beauty wasn’t a thing, clean formulas were not a thing,” Tsai says.

Plus, her experience was a common one among women-led businesses: Women founders face greater barriers funding their businesses.

A recent study from Crunchbase found that in 2019, for every $100 invested by venture capital firms, just $3 went to companies founded by women.

That’s where self-funding became essential to Tatcha’s start. At most, Tsai estimates she accumulated up to $1 million in debt across remaining student loans from undergraduate and business school, as well as credit cards used to float the company.

For a time, Tsai worked four jobs on the side, including cleaning and showing apartments, while her husband, Eric, became the single-income earner for their family. Most of their earnings went back into launching and growing Tatcha.

However, “at one point it wasn’t about necessity anymore,” Tsai says of self-funding. “It was about maintaining control.”

Not having to rely on investor dollars meant Tsai could prioritize research and development (Tatcha has a Tokyo-based R&D center), customer service and incorporating a giving model into her business. For every purchase made, Tatcha funds a day of girls’ education in partnership with the non-profit Room to Read.

Now, after Tatcha’s commercial success, Tsai has only recently started taking a salary.

“Every time I get a paycheck, it feels like I’ve won the lottery,” she says. “It’s amazing.”

However, even after bouts of barely being able to afford groceries, Tsai says her favorite way to spend her money isn’t on things.

“The first thing I did when I started taking a salary and moved out of my mom’s house is I gave everything away — like, [I was] down to seven pairs of underwear,” Tsai says. “I find ‘stuff’ to be a huge burden, so I don’t buy stuff.”

She finds spending on experiences for herself difficult because of her work schedule but tries to invest in ones to help her daughter, Alea, see the world.

“I take her to Room to Read markets with me,” Tsai says, explaining that Alea will accompany her on trips to visit the schools around the world that receive education funding from the organization.

“We matched the money she raised and she built her own library in Cambodia last year,” Tsai continues, “so we made a family trip out of it visit her library and keep in touch with the person who made it happen. So that’s philanthropy and experiences all in one.""

Re: OMG with tatcha

Porcelain — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 21:31:18 GMT

@Major Shopper wrote:
@beach-mom Your story reminds me of when I was in France with my mom. We were on a tour and the French tour guide asked us what we used on our skin because it was so smooth!

I was laughing because, in America, we are supposed to believe that Europeans have the secret when it comes to skincare products!!!

Gotta love marketing!

I would have shouted. "Arrrrrrrrrrrrgan oil!"