01.31.2018
Episode 43: Elizabeth Scherle, Co-Founder and President of Influenster
Summary
70% of startups don’t make it to the 10-year mark, something Elizabeth Scherle knew when she co-founded Influenster, a review platform for products. So when the odds aren’t in your favor, why put up your own money, go into debt and lose sleep doing it? Her answer wasn’t the typical bit about going for your dreams and trusting everything would be okay. What she revealed was a bit more practical.
Transcript
| Announcer | Welcome to Where Brains Meet Beauty, hosted by Jodi Katz, founder and creative director of Base Beauty Creative Agency. |
| Jodi Katz | Hey everyone! It's Jodi Katz, your host of Where Brains Meet Beauty. I hope you enjoy our podcast series. This is my side hustle. I do have a day job. I am the founder and creative director of Base Beauty Creative Agency. We're an omni-channel branding agency, hyper-focused on the beauty and wellness industries. Today's guest is Elizabeth Scherle. She is the founder of Influenster, and last week's episode, if you have yet to listen, features Jessica Hanson, the president of Amore Pacific, US. I hope you enjoy the show. Hello everybody, we are so excited to be joined by Elizabeth Scherle, co-founder and president of Influenster. Welcome to Where Brains Meet Beauty! |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Thanks so much for having me! I'm excited to be here. |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah this is so cool. I first found you at an event. You were speaking in on a panel at Founder [Mead 00:01:05], and I looked across the room like, "Oh my god, that hair." |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Was it green or blue at that time, or [crosstalk 00:01:09] |
| Jodi Katz | It was colorful, but there was something about all the texture and the length, and I was really smitten with it, and almost a year later, I finally chopped my hair. So you were the inspiration for that. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Oh, thanks! Yeah, I love your hair, too, it looks good. |
| Jodi Katz | Thank you. Yeah, I'm looking through how to get my texture in. So let's start at the beginning. How have you spent your day so far, today? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | I didn't really do much besides get up and get ready and come here. Played with the dog a little bit. That's about it. |
| Jodi Katz | So you're not a, "I wake up at 5:00, go the gym-" |
| Elizabeth Scherle | No, I was on Slack, messaging some people at work, but I don't get up at 5:00, and I definitely don't go to the gym before work. I'm more of a night owl. I get ... I mean I do work at home, but I get up maybe like 7:00, 7:30, normally. And then if I work out, I'll do it after work. |
| Jodi Katz | And do you keep your phone next to your bed when you go to sleep at night? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | I try not to, actually. |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | I keep it in a different room, and charge it. |
| Jodi Katz | You charge it like in the kitchen, or somewhere else? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | So I'm a charge it in the kitchen and go to sleep without a phone person, but my husband plugs it in next to the bed, so I can always see that light glowing- |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, same thing. I mean that's what my partner does, too, so he's attached to his phone. But I try to have a little bit of separation, 'cause I'm online all day. |
| Jodi Katz | It's really hard. I find myself ... I want to work through this, I think, in therapy. Longing for more messages to come in after like six-something, or seven-something, when I really kind of ... I really want to be focused on my kids, and the going to bed routine, and all that stuff, but there's part of me that just desires that frenetic energy of what's happening on my phone. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, constant stimulation, right? |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah. And when there's no messages rolling in, I'm like, well what am I supposed to do now? So I go through these periods where late at night, it will be busy, like maybe we're wrapping up a big project, or something, or a few big projects, and we kind of all go back on after the kids go to bed, to finish up work. And then I'll get conditioned for that for like a week or so, and then that will end, nobody's looking for me at 9:00 at night or 8:00 at night, and then I remember I always have Bravo. Like I have Real Housewives. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Oh yeah. You know, my staff is obsessed with the Housewives. There's a Housewives club at Influenster, and I don't watch it, but I feel like I know the characters in depth, because they talk about it so much. |
| Jodi Katz | So there's no Bravo for you? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | I'm not much of a TV person. I just moved in with my partner, so we have a television now, he loves TV. So I'm watching The Crown, which is really good, and I was into House of Cards, before, but God knows what's happening with that, now. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | But otherwise I don't ... I was never really a big sitcom, TV person. I used to be obsessed with The Bachelor, years ago, and I was coming home every night after work to watch it on Mondays, and after a while I was like, what am I doing? This is so stupid. So I got rid of it, and it was really funny, 'cause I was like I have to tear myself away from this reality TV stuff. |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah. I've really tried to intellectualize why I'm so smitten with this stuff, and what I think I love about it is it's ... I'm watching people behaving badly, all the time. And I can't do that, right? Even if I want to, right, like scream at somebody, I don't. I have to think about what's the next right step, right? All day long. Whether it's with work, or with my kids, or my husband, or just driving. But I get to watch people behaving badly all the time. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yes. |
| Jodi Katz | So incredible. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | I mean I've heard good things, so maybe I need to get on this. I feel like it'd be a good escape. |
| Jodi Katz | It is certainly an escape. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | And see people who are crazier than you, right? |
| Jodi Katz | Yes! And that they unleash it, which I think is incredible. So the first time we spoke, you told me that you are a first time entrepreneur with Influenster, right? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yup. |
| Jodi Katz | And you're incredibly successful, so do you have any thoughts on how the first time at bat, you were able to make this happen? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, I mean I feel a lot of gratitude, because I do understand the failure rate, and I think that, at the time, I wasn't as focused on that, but looking back now, you know, I mean I remember a lot of people who were starting out at the same time, and were in a different place. I think one thing that really helped me was actually working at a startup before I had my own. So I worked at a startup for like five years, and when I started there, there were like 10 people. So I came in really junior, making $25,000 a year, events assistant, but I saw the opportunity to really grow in this company. So I just dug in, started doing sales, ended up being a top person there, but not only are you doing your role, but you're doing so much of everything else. Whether it's marketing, PR, learning about what the CEO and president does. So I think that really helped me a lot. I think another thing is that our idea actually came from a need in the marketplace, like it wasn't just something random. I thought, "Oh, I'm just gonna do this." I had a lot of experience working with beauty clients, and listening to what they want, what was missing. They wanted data on people, they wanted to know what happened when people tried their products, if they were spending money on sampling. So our idea was kind of born from that, so I think that helped us. And then another thing, I think, is just, for me personally, I took almost more of a calculated risk. I didn't quit my job right away, but my partner did. So I think that's necessary, to have someone dedicated full time, but we didn't have any money. It's not like we had investors, or anything like that, so someone had to be pumping money into our company, so we did a few tests, and kind of saw, okay, do brands like this, do people like it? It resonated, and then I decided to go in full force. So those things, I think, helped in the beginning. Another thing I really believe in is that if we didn't do, I don't think I'd be standing here with you today, is kind of this give-get. So selling as a new business, no one knows who you are, or what you are. You have no experience, no history, no case studies. So it's not like I could go to a brand and say, "Hey, give me $20,000 and work with me." It's like, "Who the hell are you, and why would I trust you?" So I just decided, like hey, I'm confident in my product, try it for free, I know that they have money to spend in the future, let me prove myself to you, and then hopefully you'll come back. So we had a few big wins, in the beginning, with a PNG, and [Colgate 00:07:28], and things really kind of took off from there. |
| Jodi Katz | So this give-get was test us out, try us out, we're confident that you'll love it, and that you'll actually pay for it next time? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Exactly. Yeah that philosophy, I mean it really ... I use it today, even. If I can't get in front of a company, it's like hey, why don't you just try it and we'll prove ourselves to you, and let me come in and present the results, and then hopefully you'll want to work with us again. And it works. |
| Jodi Katz | Do you see Influenster as a media company, or a service company, like how would you categorize it? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | I see it more as a platform. Our reviews are pretty dominant. I think about it like Trip Advisor meets Facebook, for products. So we have a community of over four million people, and basically they come to Influenster to learn about products, talk about products, you can review anything, but we're not selling anything, so it's definitely more of that Trip Advisor model, where you can come and get unbiased feedback, opinions, but at the same time we're collecting so much data on people, and what they use, what they're thinking about buying. So it's a great opportunity for brands to get in front of people who are already reviewing products, and talking about them, and get them to maybe try their products and share what they think. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. But you have this side where it's sponsored opportunities, which makes me feel kind of like a media company, in a way. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, it is, kind of, except we're not really creating any content. So that's how we're different from anything under [inaudible 00:08:50] or a refinery. All the content on Influenster is user generated. So it's all about community. So they're really our authors. |
| Jodi Katz | I love this give-get. I'm thinking about this a lot, it's sort of spinning in my brain. Should I be doing that? But how can I? Right, so from a cost perspective, how did you I guess resolve what you need to ... what costs, internally, you have to develop this type of work for free, versus I guess risk reward? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, it's challenging. Especially for us, we didn't have investors, so it was my money, my partner's money, going into debt. It's scary. But at some point, you just have to take risks, and the way that I would evaluate it is I'm not gonna give a service to free for someone who won't be able to afford it later. It's more like if you're talking about a PNG or a [Cote 00:09:47], they own so many different brands, and if you get in, I knew this, if you get in with one, then you get in with all of them. And also having the ability to say like I worked with this really high level company helps to validate you when you're pitching out to other businesses, so you have to be smart about it. I mean you don't give things away to anyone. But also, for us, we did this more, I mean heavily, in the beginning, than we do now. Now it's more like, "Hey, I'm sending out a box of products, and we have one spot available, we've never worked with you before." So it's almost like an airplane taking off. Like okay, jump in, try it. But in the beginning, it was incurring more debt, and just trying it, and seeing if it worked. But once I saw the model worked, test it, you know? Once I saw it was working, then I thought, okay, I'm gonna bring this to more companies, too. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. So this would be like an agency doing a pitch, right? They're not getting paid for the pitch, but they're saying, like you have oodles of work for us, if we win this pitch, then we're gonna go for it. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | Or even a brand, right? A cosmetic brand, or a skin-care brand, saying "I'm gonna just push out a lot of new product to editors and influencers and whoever, and hope, ultimately, it will come back to me." |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, definitely. |
| Jodi Katz | I guess we all have to give. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, I mean you have to kind of design it into your own business model, and some things will make sense, and some won't, but I always evaluate like what's the gain, if this actually works? |
| Jodi Katz | And it's been several years now, right? How many years have you been [crosstalk 00:11:09] |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Seven years, actually, which is crazy. |
| Jodi Katz | Congratulations, that's awesome. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Thanks! Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | Is it hard to get in front of people, still? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | No, I would say, that's what I tell my salespeople, you know? I have an amazing sales team. A lot of them have been with me four years, so they came out of college and they had never sold anything before, and I remember in the beginning they were like, "This is so hard!" But I thought, hey guys, you have no idea what it was like when it was just me and my partner [Aidan 00:11:32], like going out and ... I would stay up until 3:00 in the morning, emailing hundreds of people, just the amount of outreach that I did was crazy. You know? And no one would respond, or people would say "Don't contact me anymore." The amount of rejections were crazy. At this point, it's definitely not hard. We get a lot of incoming business, we get a lot of repeat business. But we're pretty skewed into certain categories right now, so beauty is really big for us, which is amazing, I love beauty, but we're looking to expand into new categories like food and health and wellness and more mom stuff. We also have men in our community, so we're even doing a razor program, now. But doing more stuff that is outside of beauty. So that's more of Influenster introducing our services there. |
| Jodi Katz | Right, so new frontiers, but these will be easier [crosstalk 00:12:27] |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, I mean it's still easier, just because we have a reputation, and there's a lot of companies. I mean, if you Google Influenster, there's so many results that come up, and a lot of companies that work with us that make people feel confident. |
| Jodi Katz | This is amazing, and I also love hearing that you had to I guess deal with tons of rejection in the beginning. I am not a born salesperson. I think I'm a door opener, in sales speak. Like I know a lot of people, I have really nice conversations. What to do with that afterwards really is a mystery to me. I'm actually working with a coach to figure this out now. And we talk a lot about the scale, like reaching out to, like you said, hundreds of people, not to just tens. [crosstalk 00:13:06] that that's really what it takes, but there's something that feels so overwhelming about it to me. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, it is, and I mean I think I even talk about this sometimes with some people who work for me. So that's been my approach that I knew, just because I started when I was really young. I was at a startup. And the approach was go after everybody, you know? Because you don't know who the right person is, so I never had any barriers to that. That's kind of how I was trained. It feels uncomfortable at first, for sure, and there will be a few people who tell you ... they'll yell at you, or something, you know? But the risk of that, and the reward of actually reaching out to more people, because it's always the people that I was like, "Oh, maybe I won't pitch this person." They're the ones who end up doing something. |
| Jodi Katz | That's so awesome, great. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | So once you experience that a few times, it's just like you get over the fear of rejection, it really doesn't matter. But I mean, even for us, there's so many different people at a company, and you don't know who's exactly the decision-maker, so it's always better to reach out to more. |
| Jodi Katz | Right, yes, it's very wise, and maybe this is the right conversation for me to be having at this moment, right, to get myself more comfortable in this world. So you've done probably every job at the company, at this point. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yes. When we started, I was doing even customer service, which I'm not very good at. I was taking things really personally, in the beginning. |
| Jodi Katz | What kind of things would trigger you? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | So I was working my ass off. I was working day and night, I had no social life. I was exhausted. I had no money, I was blowing through my savings, renting out my apartment on Air BnB, doing everything to basically send people free products, right? So that's kind of like ... and some people were not ... I mean most members really appreciated and loved Influenster. I mean, that's how we grew. It was all organically. People telling their friends. We didn't spend money on advertising. But there would be, you know, just a few people who might complain on Facebook or something. Like, "Oh my god, you sent me this product, and I hate it," or something. I mean, very rarely. But it doesn't matter, because I was ... for me, doing customer service and social, I'm reading every single post. Every comment. And I just would take it personally, like hey, you're so ungrateful. I'm working so hard, you're not even paying for this, and you're coming and complaining. You know? So I just ... there was one time I got into an altercation with someone on Facebook, this was a long time ago, and then I thought, "Okay, I should not be handling customer service anymore, because this is so not." |
| Jodi Katz | So you went at it with someone, you fell into that trap. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | A little bit, yeah. I mean it wasn't anything crazy, but too much ... I pride myself on being professional, and I mean, if someone did that on my team right now, I would fire them. So you just have to not take things personally, which I think is an important lesson. It was an important lesson for me then, but it's also important, even in the workplace. You know? Even the way Influenster is, the culture is very straightforward, we talk about things up front, and I think you have to not take things personally, overall, in business. |
| Jodi Katz | Yeah, I think that's such a great lesson. It's hard for me. I mean maybe it's just hard for founders, right? These are our babies, in many ways. Our businesses. And when a client's unhappy, we all feel it in our gut. It feels like knives, right? Jammed into our gut. If we make a mistake, which hardly ever happens, really maybe once every two years, like oh, the proof is wrong. That kind of thing. We just take it so ... it really becomes an emotional trigger for us. But I think that we need to learn to just like, this is life, right? People complain, people have problems, you know. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah. And I think, I mean one thing that I try to teach and understand myself is just taking accountability and responsibility. So not everything's gonna be perfect. There's gonna be mistakes. The most important thing is to own up to them, and come up with resolutions on how to fix them. Like I try to do that, even when that happened, I was like, "Okay, I am wrong." And there's times today where I'm wrong. I messed up, I missed this, but we're gonna fix it. Especially with clients. I mean the most important thing, for me, is for a client to look good in front of their boss. Like that is my goal of working with everyone, and if we're not doing that, that really does pain me, because I want us to succeed for them. So we definitely try to listen, and understand what their needs are. If something goes wrong, the most important thing is like, "Hey, this is what's happening, we're up front with you, but we're gonna fix it." And usually that smooths things over. |
| Jodi Katz | And what's your favorite job at the company, at this point, having so many of them? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | I mean I'm like a salesperson at the heart of it, so I love working with brands and understanding product development, and what their goals are of coming out with it. I mean, I get sold by a lot of these products myself. I'm sitting there, and they're telling the story, and I'm like "Oh my god, I have to go buy it." So I think it's really fascinating, that world, so I do like being in more consultative sales, but however, as our company is growing, I've groomed a lot of people, and it's definitely time for me to move into more strategy and overall business partnerships, relationships, so I am shifting from that, but that's something that's kind of in my blood. I love to close deals. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. Okay, so I need to have you as one of my coaches, at some point. So you have a business partner, right? How do you organize who handles what, and is it ever messy? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | So we came up with the idea together, and we come from pretty different backgrounds, so I think that's one of the things that helped our business, as well. He comes from a market research background, he's way more operational than I am, and then I come from more of a sales, business development. I can do social, account management, and he's more handling the tax side of the business. And a lot of strategy, as well. So we didn't really butt heads, in terms of what we were gonna be responsible for, but we're involved in everything, you know? It's not like I don't touch anything of his, and he doesn't touch anything of mine. And I think one thing that's really great about our partnership is we're very honest with each other, probably, I mean it might scare some people, to hear us talk, sometimes, but we're really close, and we're like family. It's like we might be heated about a discussion one minute, and then five minutes later it's like, "Okay, let's go get lunch." You know? We don't hold grudges. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | But we definitely are both stubborn and passionate about the business. And I think that's good. I need someone to challenge me, sometimes. Sometimes I'll come around to his side, or vice versa. |
| Jodi Katz | And do you share a vision? Is there ever a misalignment of where this is going? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | I think that we've been pretty aligned on, overall. The visions, usually they're maybe like how to get there, there might be disagreements sometimes. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. And you said his name is [Aidan 00:20:22]? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Mm-hmm (affirmative). |
| Jodi Katz | So do you think that both you and [Aidan 00:20:25] have the same vision for where you'd be seven years later, seven years ago? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | No. I think that our business evolves, and that's the thing is both of us are very adaptable, and I think that the thing that we really pride ourselves on collectively is innovation and how can you make your business different, and move forward, because we're not even doing the exact same thing we were doing seven years ago. It's more like, hey, I'm listening to brands, this is what they want, so I would bring that to him. Or he might notice something about members, like "Oh, they really want to interact with each other, let's add more social networking." So I think both of us are really having our eyes on the platform, and also our team members, too. And we don't want to be yesterday's news. I think you always have to add new things. Clients always want it, what's fresh, what's going on. Innovation is really important. So it is a constant involvement, I would say. |
| Jodi Katz | I love this. You don't want to be yesterday's news. I mean nobody wants to be yesterday's news, but it's not necessarily a pivotal guide for them, that thought, right? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, especially when you're doing well. I mean it'd be easy for me to sit here and be like, "Oh yeah, we're great, and we don't need to do anything new," like no. We're constantly pushing our team. We need to add more features, we need to add more products that we can sell to brands. You don't want to just be this one thing. And if anything, a lot of them are really hungry, like, "Hey, what else can we do?" So it's really important. Otherwise, they'll go somewhere else looking for it. |
| Jodi Katz | Why haven't you made the move into actually being a retailer, right? Like other businesses that have established themselves in the last ten years, they start out with one idea, and then they evolve into okay we're gonna sell this stuff too. What's kept you from doing that? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | So we have been focused on creating this platform and community that's more unbiased. We want to be the ultimate place where you can come and really be a content provider for brands, and so we're very protective of that content. I think one thing that you see on retail review sites is a lot of people talking about shipping, and different things. So that was one thing we thought about, but also we have products and partnerships with brands and companies where they can actually sell on Influenster, but it's being sold on their site. So we're working with brands to drive their E-com business, for example. So there are special deals Influensters can get that no one else can, but it's more like we're developing partnerships with the actual retailer and driving them there and then we get commissions from that. |
| Jodi Katz | That's so smart. Who came up with the name Influenster? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | That was [Aidan 00:23:04]. |
| Jodi Katz | I love it. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | And did you know to trademark it right away? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | We did. I mean we didn't have a lot of guidance, or money in the beginning, but we did do that. There were a few things we did buy, URLs and trademarking. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. I love Legal Zoom for that reason, like you don't need to be an expert, you don't need to hire an expert, just get the trademark. It's sort of, I think, the entrepreneurs go-to. Like, "Let's just go to Legal Zoom. Solve that problem." |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, definitely. So the name, it was funny, when we started, influencer marketing was not around at all, and we- |
| Jodi Katz | So the term wasn't used for that space seven years ago? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | It wasn't really. I mean it was a new ... I mean everyone knew what an influencer was, but today it's something that's so different. It's so common. And even selling influencer marketing, when we started, people were like, "What is that? People are gonna talk about my stuff? I'm scared, I'm not paying them. I can't control what they're gonna say." But the name itself is so obvious, right? |
| Jodi Katz | I love it. Seven years ago, I'm thinking about the work we were doing in this space, we called them bloggers, and the best you could get is to have your product featured in their blog. There was ... Instagram was in its infancy, like really infancy. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, definitely. |
| Jodi Katz | And the traditional media editor still ruled. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Oh, they did, and now that's a different world, right? |
| Jodi Katz | It's amazing, seven years. I'm just tracking this back because I remember I was pregnant with my daughter, who's seven, and at time we did like a huge Clinique influencer project, but the influencers, they were bloggers. That was it. And it was totally a new frontier for that brand, at the time. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, definitely. It's funny, Clinique is working with us right now. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh good! I love to see them continue to grow. So let's switch gears for the last segment of our podcast. When you think about your life, and what you've achieved so far, you're this small town Iowa girl, right? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | I am. |
| Jodi Katz | Makes it big in New York City, what does it make you think about? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, I mean my life, growing up, couldn't be more different than what it is now. But I think, at the core of it, I still really resonate with growing up in Iowa. I'm from a farm in the middle of nowhere. I mean you had to be self reliant, self sufficient, even to get groceries, or gas, it's like 30 minutes away. So there's always this mentality, growing up, like things don't just come to you, you have to go out and get them. That really stays with me, even today. But I went to a school with 25 kids in my class, in the middle of a field with cows roaming outside. So it was very different, but I always knew that I wanted to be in a big pond. I wanted to try it. I wanted to see if I could make it. So I remember being in elementary school, sitting under a tree, and thinking, "I'm gonna get out of here, I know I will," you know? But I think what helped me do those things is just getting over fear. Like I have to do things that are scary, and challenge myself. Even picking a college, I mean I picked one of the largest universities in the country, that was a plane ride away. That was really scary for me, at the time, but it really helped me grow, and then I thought, "I might just want to try New York City, see if I can make it there." No job, no friends, no money, and I just came. |
| Jodi Katz | So what do you think inspired you to desire New York? I grew up in New Jersey, so New York wasn't far. It was a place that we went. And the movie Desperately Seeking Susan was really kind of how I imagined New York to be, right? Living in the city. What inspired this vision that New York was the place you needed to land? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | I think I was ... I've always loved traveling, and moving around, and I was in college on the west coast, and I just thought, you know, it's a little bit easier there. People might not like to admit that, but it is. And I just thought, "I want to be in this huge city." I've always wanted to experience and just live there, at least for a while. I didn't think that I'd be here this long. I think I've been here like 15 years, which is crazy. But I just wanted to try it. I knew it was the ultimate challenge. |
| Jodi Katz | Right. And do you go back to Iowa? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah. My dad lives there, and my older sister, she was just here, actually. So I'm going for Christmas. I'm driving there with my 100 pound dog. |
| Jodi Katz | Oh my god. So is this a working farm? They're growing stuff? |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, so my dad was not a farmer, but we lived on a farm, and there were people farming the land around us, yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | And you weren't doing chores, like you weren't picking corn- |
| Elizabeth Scherle | No, I mean it was kind of a weird experience, because we grew up in a community of farm kids, they were in 4H, and they had cattle, and I don't even know what the difference is between all of them but you know, a lot of animals, and going out, and trimming weeds, and things like that. We weren't doing that. My dad is a musician, my mom was an artist, my sister was in ballet, in Omaha, Nebraska, so that was a 40 minute drive. But we still lived in the environment, you know? So we got to experience it. But I was not farming, myself. |
| Jodi Katz | Right, but you're such a picture I see little Elizabeth under a tree, after school one day, thinking, "I'm gonna go somewhere." |
| Elizabeth Scherle | Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
| Jodi Katz | But I don't hear this, "I can't wait to get out of here," like a Footloose kind of mentality. |
| Elizabeth Scherle | No, not at all. I mean I loved growing up there. I treasure it, actually, because we spent so much time outside. I mean one thing that I still value, really, today, is just being alone, and having time to think, and if anything, we were just super creative, because you're in your house, and we were always painting and drawing and making clothes and my dad was playing music, and I really enjoyed it. And I had really great friends, and it was fun. I learned how to drive when I was like 10, in the field. It was great. |
| Jodi Katz | Awesome, that's awesome. Well thank you so much, Elizabeth. This has been incredible, and for our listeners, you heard some 80s movie references that I threw in there today. I hope you enjoy this interview with Elizabeth. Please subscribe to our series on iTunes, and for updates about the show, please follow us on Instagram at Base Beauty Creative Agency. For our listeners, I hope you enjoyed this interview. Please subscribe to our series on iTunes, and for updates about the show, follow us on Instagram at Where Brains Meet Beauty Podcast. |
| Announcer | Thanks for listening to Where Brains Meet Beauty with Jodi Katz. Tune in again for more authentic conversations with beauty leaders. |
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