The Ugly Truth of Entrepreneurship
Creating my own flexible schedule, working around available childcare, and having my own worst critic as a boss are some of the pro’s (the latter depending on the day of course!) of being a small business owner. Turns out there are many more unexpected highs of entrepreneurship too. I launched Evan Beau back in Spring ‘21 with the help of an extraordinary public relations team. It was the high point I was dreaming of, with immediate accolades from Elle Canada, Elle Quebec, Chatelaine, and Monte Cristo magazine, featuring our extraordinary ingredients profile and, more notably, our $1/product donations promise.
But--
Many before me have described entrepreneurship and specifically working in the beauty industry as an uphill battle, especially with the onset of the social media beast, and I can see why. What came before was a test of mental will, a storm to test my dedication to a product line that was years in the making, yet to launch, and with a strong long term vision I could almost taste--
It began with a misplaced (and unfortunately, destroyed) certified cheque I wrote to a company I was doing business with (my bank account is still on hold for that money years later), half my inventory of Italian-made custom glass bottles shattered to smithereens by a shipping company one month before expected launch (if you ever wondered why the Ethereal Foundation bottles are different from the Essential serums...), a printing mishap with cartons (our fantastic packaging solutions company reprinted to ensure our finished product was nothing short of perfection), along with the days where I simply wanted to quit, were my basic training for beauty entrepreneurship. Business school would have been arguably cheaper, but not nearly as dynamic!
One night at bedtime, after weeks on end with no new orders coming in (yes, despite the wonderful reception by press and my few existing customers!), I was journaling and manifesting recouping the costs of starting such a huge undertaking on my own. Contrary to the manifestation state of mind, I felt some waves of ‘woe is me’ and ‘what have I done?’ Evan Beau, which had itself taken on a life and personality of its own, quickly snapped me out of that useless mindset; Children all around the world are being sold for sex, enduring unmentionable physical and emotional pain, and I am grumbling in my king sized bed with two happily sleeping children down the hall?! Be grateful. If they can survive that, I can continue through entrepreneurial hardships, growing pains, and basically everything else! I owed it to those kids to shout about Evan Beau from the rooftops, swallow my pride about sending out more than one newsletter a week, and keep our vibe high. Our products are truly incredible and their results speak for themselves! But kids don’t have a voice. We must try to educate ourselves and learn more about what to do to rescue them and to protect them from sexual violence and trafficking. So yes, I can manage as a newborn fish in a sea of beauty biz sharks, because survival is the only way to flourish and grow. And we want to do it a little differently than the others.
Help us flourish to make a positive impact on the lives of vulnerable children, while embarking on your own honest and clean skincare journey. If you already use clean skincare brands, consider trying ours when you want to switch up your routine. If you haven’t made a move into clean beauty yet, let this be your invitation to see how our results can out-compete other leaders in the industry, without any controversial ingredients.
Shop clean and conscious beauty (check out our new, perfectly curated additions to the site from this week!), and $1 from every product sold goes directly to One Body Village Canada to end child trafficking in our lifetime.
And, Evan Beau was recently featured in the wildly useful and inspiring entrepreneurial platform GoSolo. Take a look, and then check out their site here.
