Fashion Brief
How did you start in business – was there a lightbulb moment?
I went for an interview at a salon in Beverly Hills – after emigrating to the US from the UK, via South Africa. It would have been very easy for me to get a job, quite simply because I was European-trained and I had an accent: they told me as much.
I asked the woman who offered me a job: “How come you only employ European-trained skin therapists, but everyone who is answering the phones and selling the products is American?” And she said: “Americans have such poor training they don’t know how to give a good skin treatment and Europeans can’t sell.”
I thought the training would be fantastic in America. I was watched Dallas on TV and it looked like everyone had been having treatments every minute. But, when I looked into it, I found out training in the US was just four months, whereas my training had been two years with an apprenticeship.
When I was living in South Africa I’d also got my teaching credential to teach skincare. And Raymond [Wurwand], who was then my boyfriend, now my husband, had a job with a skincare equipment manufacturer in California at the same time. He couldn’t sell any equipment because he was calling on salons who said: “I’ve no idea what this equipment is, I’ve no idea how to use it.”
Together we realised there was a huge opportunity in creating an industry that existed in Europe and South Africa, but not in the US. The “Aha!” moment was seeing that the missing link was good quality education in skincare – and we had the ability to fill it.
So our first company was a training company [the International Dermal Institute] and three years after that we launched Dermalogica.
What strengths do you need to make it without financial backing?
You have to be able to be very frugal, to have the ability to only spend where it matters. For the first two years we ran our business out of our apartment. And for the first three years I only drew $300 a month out of the business: all I bought was underwear and pantyhose [tights]. A big night out was me making cauliflower cheese in the apartment.
It’s easy to do that for a week or month. But when you do that for years you start to think: “This isn’t working” – but you have to remember your long-term goal.
You announced a deal to sell Dermalogica to Unilever last year. How did you decide who to sell to?
We knew we wanted to sell – so we chose five big companies that we wanted to have dinner with. For us it was the thing to do to find the right partner – it was a chemistry check. Paul Polman [chief executive of Unilever] flew coach [economy] to Los Angeles, then took an Uber to his Airbnb apartment (I am inspired by disruptive businesses.)
What is your proudest moment?
I remember a time at the Santa Barbara zoo with my daughters when they were little. A woman came up to me and said she wanted to thank me. She explained she was a salon owner who’d gone through our training and carried our products for 12 years. Through her business she’d got out of a brutal relationship, she was able to raise her two sons on her own, and was making more than $100,000 (£75,000) a year.
I have heard a version of that story many times from the women that carry my products. I’m really proud that it gives women an opportunity to be financially independent and, in this last week, of having President Barack Obama appoint me as a presidential ambassador for entrepreneurship .
What does the ambassador role involve?
We meet with the president twice a year and advise him on what we see happening in entrepreneurship and what we see is lacking. I’ll talk to him about increasing funding to community colleges and instating a strong apprenticeship programme in the US. Ambassadors also commit to doing at least one domestic and one international entrepreneurial trip on behalf of the United States. It’s very exciting.
Who has inspired you in business?
When Anita Roddick started the Body Shop it was completely visionary and highly disruptive. I feel very sad that she didn’t get a chance to live longer after its acquisition. I didn’t know her personally, but I know that journey. But I think to myself that must have been a huge decision, and she passed away 14 months after she sold to L’Oréal.
Is there anything you wish you’d done differently?
I wish we had put in a line of succession in the business. I wish we had earmarked maybe four people that joined us when they were junior, that had the right energy and attitude to make it up to CEO. Before we went to acquisition we thought we’ll bring in outside senior management and they’ll run the company, but the company will continue to be ours. So we brought in two CEOs and neither of them worked out. And the reason was that when your company has a highly evolved culture you can’t bring in someone and graft them on to it. You have to grow them from within. And we didn’t do that. If I have one regret, that would be it.
Jane Wurwand was speaking at Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network, a summit in Cape Town to discuss how women can grow their businesses. Emma Featherstone’s flights and accommodation were paid for by Dell, who hosted the conference
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