Hi everyone, I'm Hilary Kerr, the co-founder and chief contact officer of Who What Wear,
and this is Second Life, a podcast spotlighting women who have truly inspiring careers.
We're talking about their work journeys, what they've learned from the process of setting
aside their doubts or fears, and what happens when they embark on their second life.
Today, I'm speaking with the founder and CEO of Ceremonia, Baba Rivera.
In 2020, Baba created Ceremonia, which is a line of clean haircare products
that are rooted in Latinx heritage.
The initial launch included a single product, a scalp oil,
inspired by personal childhood rituals, and her father's early career as a hairdresser in Chile.
Since then, Ceremonia has grown to include 20 products and opened a brick and mortar store in New York City.
Within the last year, Ceremonia became the first Latinx founded haircare brand sold at Sephora,
and the product line can now be found in over 500 Sephora locations.
Baba also recently raised $10 million in a Series A round,
making her one of only 58 Latinx to raise over a million dollars in VC funding.
But before she was building a haircare empire, Baba was actually spearheading marketing teams
at unicorns like Uber and Away.
And in between her time working at startups and founding Ceremonia,
she even created her own brand marketing agency called Bye Baba,
where she worked with clients like Glossier, Bumble, and Ritual.
Baba's story is beyond inspiring, but I'll let her tell you the rest herself.
Now, on Second Life, it's Baba Rivera.
Baba, thank you so much for doing this. I'm really, really excited.
I am so excited. This has been like a bucket list thing for me. I love your podcast.
Oh my gosh, that's so nice to hear. So let's just dive in.
We like to start at the beginning on this podcast.
What did you study in school and much more importantly?
What did you think you were going to be when you grew up?
So I studied international sales and marketing,
and that was not at all what I initially thought I would study
or the path I was going to take to be quite honest.
I had never even heard of the word marketing growing up.
I grew up in a small town, you know, with parents who didn't have any academic jobs.
My mom was a cleaning lady. My dad worked in car cleaning.
So the world of academics was very foreign.
And I didn't know what people did in offices, but it just fascinated me.
And I always loved fashion.
And I loved like this idea of like getting dressed up to go to work.
And it was just this wild dream I had of one day,
maybe working in an office.
It's so funny because my parents had non-office jobs.
And so I too had this fascination with the idea of an office,
like a place that you went and like a nine to five and having a briefcase.
I don't know why I thought that was so cool.
This is so relatable.
I actually for my fifth birthday, all I wanted was a briefcase.
And my mom got me a briefcase with posted notes and markers.
And I played with that briefcase every day.
That's so cute.
But so let's go back to school.
So international sales and marketing,
how did you end up with that being your area of study?
And what did you think you were going to do with that sort of educational background?
I sort of landed on this by accident.
So I used to work in the Iowa industry.
While I was studying, I picked up a weekend job at this local optometry store
in the small town where I grew up.
And that was the first interaction I had with brands.
Because once in a while, we would have what they called a trunk show
where a brand would come to our optical store
and they would showcase the full collection.
And we would do sort of like an event in the store that day
where our local customer base were able to come and experience
the full range of this brand because we were a small store.
So we weren't able to stock all styles from each brand.
And there was this brand that really caught my attention
at a German brand called Maikita.
And when their sales rep came in, I was almost jealous of him.
I was like, oh my god, is that a job?
Like, what does he do?
He goes to all these places and he carries the whole collection
and he's like in between the headquarters
and all of these physical stores.
This sounds so cool.
And I started asking him like, what is this job?
And he was like, oh, it's, you know, a mix of sales and marketing.
I was like, what is marketing?
And yeah, he just gave me the rundown.
And after that, I Googled sales and marketing basically.
So that's how he landed on that path, you know,
complete accident.
And initially I thought it was going to land me
a similar job to him in the Iowa industry.
That was sort of like the wildest dream I could have at the time.
I love that.
So I know you did an internship at some point in Germany.
I'm so interested in what that process was like.
Yeah, so the internship was actually at that brand.
So you can imagine how big of a dream come true that was.
So when I started studying international sales and marketing
that prompted a move to Stockholm.
I grew up in a small town.
So I had to move to the capital of Sweden
to do these education.
And the last part of the education included an internship.
And you had to find it on your own.
And I mean, everyone did it in Stockholm.
No one did an international one.
But I asked, I was like, is there a limitation?
Like, does it have to be in Sweden?
And they looked at me weird.
And they were like, we never had someone ask that.
But I guess no, you can do it wherever.
I was like, great, because I'm thinking of applying to Germany.
And they're like, OK.
And then I applied to this internship.
I found it on my Kitas homepage.
Immediately when I saw it, I knew it was meant for me.
But then when I read the requirements,
one of their requirements stated that you
needed to speak flu and German.
And I did not speak a word.
So I was like, OK, I cannot just send in my application here
because I have zero chance of even getting to an interview.
So I need to find another path in.
The door is clearly closed.
Is there a window I can climb being through?
And at the time, because I had so much passion
for the Iowa industry, I was running an Iowa blog.
And this blog has sort of gained a lot of traction
because it was so niche that any Iowa brand knew of us
because there were just not that many of us.
So I remembered that one of their head designers
had commented on our blog ones because I
had done a review of their latest collection.
And obviously, since I was a nerd, it was very thoughtful.
And as a designer, he was also a nerd
and thought it was very thoughtful.
So he commented something.
So then I took his name and search for it on Facebook
and wrote to him.
And I was like, hi, I'm the founder of this blog called Bonicle.
I think if I'm not mistaken, you commented on our post ones.
I'm a huge fan of my key dyes.
I saw this opening position for a marketing internship.
I'm dying to come work for you guys.
Would you be able to introduce me to the marketing director
or whoever is in charge of the application process?
And he did.
So he introduced me to the marketing director.
And then the next challenge was, OK,
how do I get a meeting in the books?
Because my resume is not impressive whatsoever.
And I don't speak German.
And I'm in Stockholm.
So then I pretended like I was anyway going to Berlin.
Of course.
Mind you, I have $60 in my bank account.
And I tell this woman that, oh, I got introduced
and I'm a huge fan.
Funny enough, I'm actually going to be in Berlin in a week.
And I thought maybe you would have time
to grab coffee and we could talk a little bit
about this open position you have.
And then I guess because when someone is so casually like,
oh, I'm going to be there, the stakes are so low.
It would have been insane for them
to be like, yeah, fly out here for a meeting.
But if I was anyway going to be there, why not meet with me?
So they agreed to the meeting.
And it was just driven by so much passion
and almost like I think I manifested it.
And even though the odds were against me,
I just wanted it so badly that I made it happen.
But I love what you're saying because it's applicable
to anyone at any point in their career
or their life for that matter, which
is having that authentic, organic passion for something
creates those connections.
You don't need to be quote unquote connected to get access.
It's like that enthusiasm can drive it
and to your point open a window if not a door.
It's inspiring because yes, there is a certain resourcefulness
that's required.
But ultimately, it just starts with being open
and candid about liking something that someone's doing.
That's amazing.
Totally.
And I think another piece of tangible advice there
is that people always go to the same person.
And that same person gets so many requests
that it's impossible for them to grab that coffee with everyone.
If I were quote unquote lazy, I would just
go to the founder and creative director of the company.
But at the time, if I would have just messaged him,
it would have gotten lost because he was getting messages
from people like me every hour of the day.
Instead, I went to this head designer
that most people didn't even know existed
because he was behind the scenes.
And then through him, I got another connection
to another person behind the scenes.
So I think when you have genuine passion,
you also know some of these details
that can open opportunities.
Absolutely.
OK, so you have that amazing internship.
And then how did that turn into helping
to launch a very small company that I'm sure no one's heard of
called Uber in Stockholm?
Oh, yeah, that's a bit of a leap, right?
So I think what was interesting for me
was that as much as my keto was this dream come true for me
to finally get in through the door,
what I realized once I was there was
that the eye-range industry, as a whole,
is actually not an industry where
I saw myself building my career.
It was very slow moving.
And that had nothing to do with my keto.
That was just the industry.
So simultaneously, I was sort of inspired
by some of my guy friends who seemed to love their jobs
and no one could even pronounce the companies
they were working for because no one had heard of them before.
And they were just random startups
that were started 10 minutes ago.
And everyone was so passionate and they were moving so fast
and working all day.
And it seemed to be a lifestyle.
And I wanted that.
I was so hungry.
Once I graduated, I was ready to work.
I wanted to learn.
I wanted to apply all these learnings that I got in school.
And so that opened up my eyes to the tech industry.
So I started to network my way into that industry
so that I could understand better.
And the way I came in contact with Uber was actually
that they contacted me.
And I think there are two things
that are important to remember here.
One is that Uber was a tiny company at the time.
I think they were 120 people globally.
And when I left the company, we were 12,000.
So just to put it in perspective,
like this was a tiny company.
And they were getting some traction in the US obviously,
but they hadn't launched internationally yet.
So when they contacted me,
I didn't even know who they were.
And the reason they were contacting me
was because they were looking for a community manager
to launch the service in Sweden.
And they just so happened to get my name
recommended by a couple of people
because I was just very active in that community at the time.
And this was the early days of performance marketing.
And I was sort of living a little bit
in between brand marketing and performance marketing
and like early days of social media.
So I was quote and quote known for like that young girl
who's doing all this new stuff, this new marketing.
So they got intrigued.
I wanted to talk to me.
Once I was in the meeting,
I realized really quickly that I really want this
and my passion kicked in.
And I was like, I need to get this job.
Like I don't care if I have to move mountains.
Like I'm going to get this job.
And I'm very aware of my lack of experience
and my young age and all the butts and ifs.
So I have to somehow prove to them
that I am the right person.
So they were looking for a community manager,
someone who could open doors,
who can get Uber involved in, you know,
every cultural aspect of the city.
And obviously a big part of that in Stockholm is nightlife.
Everyone is taking taxes to go out
and there's a huge party scene in Sweden.
So I needed to get them confident that
in addition to understanding performance,
marketing and growth marketing,
I also was cool and hip and could get the new places
and could talk to all the relevant people.
So I kind of like orchestrated a night out
where I was like, oh, and before you guys leave back
to San Francisco, you should get a taste of Stockholm.
Can I take you guys out?
And they're like, well, sure.
We go, I skipped the line.
I'm like, oh, they're with me.
We go to the bar, we get free drinks,
then we go to the after-after party, the VIP,
you know, and all this.
And I'm like, oh, these girls, she's a musician,
she's really blowing up.
And all you have to meet this other friend of mine,
she's the editor-in-chief of the magazine here.
And it was definitely dressed to impress type of situation.
I mean, they must have loved it though.
Like that's incredible.
If they're really looking for someone who's connected
and has like the skill set,
I mean, that was the perfect audition, right?
Totally.
I did have to pull a lot of favors for my friends.
I'm not gonna lie.
I was not that connected.
I became that connected after a while,
but I was not there yet.
That's all kinds of phenomenal.
I love that.
And Stockholm and Sweden in general became
Uber's fastest growing market at that time.
You've also mentioned in past interviews
that you had a lot of autonomy at Uber
and that you didn't even have a quote unquote boss
for like the first eight months that you were there.
What was that like?
Because yes, you had some of the hard skills of course,
but also you were building a new world.
So no one had the skills for it to some extent.
So everything would have to be implemented
from scratch anyway, right?
Yeah, it was definitely intimidating at first.
I think first I joined with like all these confidence
because I always say this,
you only know what you know, right?
So when you know very little, you actually think you know more.
And the more you know, the more you realize
how more there is to learn.
Sometimes when you're young, you just have
this inflated sense of confidence and that was definitely me.
And then I joined Uber, some of my first meetings,
I'm speaking to like extremely talented
matte physicians and engineers and extremely creative people
who somehow also understand metrics.
And I was just like, wow,
this company has some of the smartest people I've ever met.
And not only am I inexperienced,
my English is also not even great.
I was so intimidated.
And I just had to make a commitment for myself
that what I did not have an experience,
I had to compensate in effort.
I really turned up the volume on my passion and dedication
and I truthfully cut down everything else from my life.
And I decided that this is going to be my business school.
I'm going to give it my all
and I'm not going to rest until I'm good at it.
But it doesn't come without sacrifice.
So I don't mean that that's the path for everyone.
It's definitely not the path for me today.
I am a mother of two, et cetera,
but at the time, what else would I be doing?
I was 22, you know, like I'm really proud
that I poured myself into my career
and really build some exciting building blocks
that has now enabled a lot of change in my life today.
And when you spend a lot of time on something,
you actually become pretty good at it.
I also think that's one of the many benefits
to joining a startup or a smaller company
right when you're entering the job market
because you also generally get to do a lot more
than if you went and worked for like a very big established
company that's super hierarchical.
There are benefits to both,
but I just love how hands-on you get to be
in an environment like that, right?
No, that is so true.
And as you mentioned earlier, I didn't have a boss.
I actually had a boss when I joined,
but he got fired within the first two weeks.
So that was also a reality check for me
where I was like, oh, just getting the job
is not a guarantee that you get to keep the job.
You also have to perform.
And I think it really instilled
this like performance mindset for me from an early age.
And it's also set the tone for how I've operated ever since.
Like all I know is growth and all I know is fast paced.
I don't know anything else because I got schooled at Uber.
It's a good business school for that.
So I know you eventually moved to New York City
and continued working for Uber at that point in time.
I'm wondering if you can walk me through some of sort of
like the top level biggest or proudest moments
that you had working for Uber over those four years
because I'm sure it's like four years
but probably felt like 10.
Yeah, those four years really felt like a lifetime.
Also, there were very formative years for me.
You know, I feel like I grew up at Uber.
And it was a huge move to move from Stockholm to New York.
It was something that again, I wanted and I made it happen.
I was doing really well at Uber in Sweden
but Uber Sweden was only going to be so big.
Like even if we attracted every human under the sun
inside of Sweden to become Uber writers,
the country's only so big.
So I really felt like my potential within the company
was not seeing its full potential
by being in a small satellite office.
And I was very passionate about Uber
and simultaneously my boyfriend,
his startup had grown and he was racing,
he's serious A from a US-based investor
and part of the term sheets that he was receiving
stated that he needed to move to the US.
And it's interesting because now if something like that
would happen, like we're married and we have to,
it's like it's a no-brainer
that that's something we're doing together
but this was during that time that I was in my mid 20s.
I was like, yeah, cool, maybe you go and do that
and maybe I moved to Korea
and help establish Uber in South Korea.
And he was like, if you're anyway thinking
about moving somewhere with Uber,
we wouldn't at least consider New York
since I'm moving there.
And I was like, oh, but I don't like New York,
which is crazy because I love New York now.
Like I don't know what I was thinking
but I'm from a small town.
So it was overwhelming coming to New York the first time.
So my boyfriend actually booked a trip to New York
where he was gonna go and you know set up the office
and stuff and he was like, why don't you come with me?
And it's a work trip, like you can work
from the New York office during that week.
Well, I do my work, like he made it sound very casual
but now in retrospect, he has admitted
that it was very much a campaign of let's get Baba obsessed
with New York and he planned the most amazing week.
And I got to meet the team in New York during that week
because I was just working remote
and I just felt so energized being in that city.
I felt so energized sitting in on their meetings,
exchanging notes and I realized that gosh,
I can learn a lot from them
but they can also learn a lot from me.
Like this will be such an amazing exchange.
What if I moved to the New York office with Uber?
And then I pitched that idea
and because I had a top performing track record,
Uber was very data driven with performance,
each sort of like facilitated the conversation
to even take place.
But then we have encountered the big hurdle
which is the visa process.
So the whole thing took about a year
but long story short, Uber did sponsor a relocation for me
and it was the best thing that could have ever happened.
I am New York bound for life.
Love it.
So at what point did you decide, okay,
I think it's time for my next step.
It's time for me to leave Uber
and sort of what was that process like?
Yeah, I felt like I started to hit
a couple of glass ceilings
as Uber started to get more centralized.
And at this time, I was in love with New York
and no one was gonna be able to drag me out of there.
So the East Coast was gonna get centralized
but not in New York.
It was getting centralized in DC
and I did definitely not see myself moving to the DC office
and I also did not see myself being a messenger in New York.
I wanna be where decisions are made.
The part that I loved about Uber the most was the autonomy.
So I did not feel super excited about the idea
that people would sit in DC coming up
with all the centralized plans
and then they would be handed off to New York
and I would execute that didn't feel fun.
I started to lose my steam just thinking about that
and simultaneously met a really inspiring founder.
She had just left Warby Parker to start this new brand
called Away, her name was Jen Rubio
and we were both speaking at the same conference
and we became instant best friends.
She kept telling me about this company away
and I was really excited to help her.
I was trying to find a director of brand marketing
for her, I presented so many people
and she kept rejecting everyone until she then one day
took me out on a date with her co-founder
who was the CEO of the company, Steph Corey
and Steph goes, let's just cut to the chase.
Can you see that we've been trying to flirt
into the company for like the past eight months?
What is it gonna take for you to join us?
And I was like, oh, I thought I was helping you guys
recruit, they're like, no, we want to hire you.
So I took the flattering approach and left Uber
on a Friday and joined away on a Saturday.
Oh my gosh, that is a regret for sure.
I don't live a life in regrets
but it was a little too intense and in retrospect
they could have waited a week, come on.
But when you are young and it feels like it's now or never
you just do what you got to do.
But I did pay for it later.
I almost hit burnout at away.
I had not had a break ever.
I started working when I was 14 and I was a A student.
I also had two jobs while I was studying
and I just been operating on an insane level
for so many years and then went straight
into this other crazy startup
and the reality with away was that it was really, really fun
to be part of the grind again
and building something from the ground up
but I did not love the company culture.
And I think that was a big aha moment for me
that it's not just about loving the brand
and it's not just about loving your own immediate team.
You also have to live and breathe the company culture
in order to have long-term success
and happiness in your day-to-day work.
My years at Uber flew by
whereas my weeks at away felt like I was operating
I don't know, through mud.
So it was an interesting difference
and I can't pinpoint exactly what it was.
Maybe it was just that I had run out of my course
and I needed to do something on my own
but I definitely started to feel the urge that
I needed to make a change and actually take a leap of faith
and finally do something on my own.
Well, we're gonna get into your trajectory
of doing things on your own
but before we do that, I'm just curious
what was it like going from marketing at Uber to away
because they're two very different products
and I'm wondering if that felt like a big change
or if it was a pretty seamless move
in terms of like strategy
and how you thought through the big picture.
It was similar and different at the same time.
So it was similar in the sense that away was also operating
almost like a tech company.
They had similar investors as Uber had.
They were on like a high growth trajectory
slash expectation slash a clock as I call it
like the moment you take on external capital
like you have an egg clock next to you
and time is money so that felt normal to me
and I think that was an easy transition
whereas I feel like for people who come from corporate
and join startup that is usually a big like,
oh, I need to do things today.
But then it was different in the sense
that this was physical goods, huge physical goods.
So we ran into all the fun stuff
around supply chain and logistics
and my marketing ideas could not just be implemented overnight.
We also needed physical product to support it
and delays and collaborations I worked on
with limited edition color drops and celebrity deals
or whatever they all had very different timelines
and it was interesting to be in that tension
of needing to run really quickly
because investors are expecting month or month growth
but then at the same time be dealing with supply chain
which just is what it is.
These goods are not gonna make themselves overnight.
So that was definitely I think the biggest challenge.
That makes sense.
Okay, so company culture, burnout,
all of those things contributed to the idea
of I'm gonna start something myself.
So tell me about the early days
of starting your own marketing agency.
Like what was the plan?
How did you come to that?
Did you take any time off finally in between
or did you just leap in?
So unfortunately I didn't have the luxury of time
because I wasn't a visa.
So when I left my position at a way,
my visa was going up in fumes with it in the next 30 days.
So I had 30 days to figure out a new visa situation
which means I can't just cruise on a beach
and like find myself.
I have to either move out of the US and find myself
or I have to figure something out really quickly.
So honestly like the marketing agency,
it was more like this is what's accessible to me right now
versus I've always dreamt of a marketing agency.
Like I just wanna serve clients.
Like it wasn't coming from that place
if I'm being completely honest with myself.
I knew that I wanted to do something on my own.
I knew that I had it in me,
but I had no capital and I had no time.
I had spent all my savings to buy out my stock from Uber
and that turned out to be a very smart financial decision
down the line, but at the time it was just an expense
and I had to pay taxes on them up front.
So it was just terrible.
I went into personal depth to do it.
But so I borrowed my boyfriend's work computer
like extra computer.
He had like a travel one and I started the agency
and created a logo and filed for a new visa process
which also cost thousands of dollars to go through
because you need to engage lawyers.
Then I realized that I needed to very quickly find some first clients
because otherwise I can't get my visa application.
If I can't show that I can make a living for myself.
So it all just like forced me into this immediate action.
But I also kind of love it
because sometimes you can go into paralysis with big change
and this just forced me to like take one step at a time
and just keep going.
I threw myself head first and I learned so much
about being an entrepreneur
and I think it created newfound respect for my previous bosses
and the stress that they must have been under
and the entrepreneurial journey is definitely not the same
as being an employee even if you're an ambitious one.
So I wouldn't change it for anything
in many ways.
I feel like that was my second business school
in the school that I needed before starting my,
what I call real company, which is what I am doing today.
So how did you find clients in the beginning?
So from the beginning, I was nobody like,
okay, suddenly Baba has a brand marketing agency
that's also called by Baba, mind you.
So like what is this?
I went out to my immediate network as a first step
and I had built quite a network doing my time at Uber and away.
I was doing brand partnerships for both of them.
So naturally I was meeting with a lot of people
in the marketing field.
So I sent out a personal email to this little network
of industry professionals and I informed them of my new chapter
and I kind of like quite volumnably stated that
I feel super passionate about this new chapter
and hear some of the things that I envision myself offering.
It's something that I did in-house at away and Uber
and now I wanna create the agency version of these functions
but I'm really desperate for case studies.
So if you have something exciting that you're working on
and you want my help, this is the time to get a really good deal
because it's really in my interest to get to work.
And I think being vulnerable is so powerful
and immediately I got a bunch of responses
and two of my first clients came straight from that.
One of my first client was A-Day, the ATLEASURE company
and then the other one was a fashion brand
called ATP at the Air.
They found out about me through my Instagram.
They were following me because I have a big interesting fashion
and I started to grow an audience on Instagram
just as being like a working woman kind of like
rewriting the script for what work rare means today
for a fashionable woman and when the CEO saw my Instagram post
that I was leaving away to start my own brand marketing agency,
she immediately emailed me.
So they became my second client
and they were a client throughout all of the years
that around the brand marketing agency
and I actually still work with them
but I serve on their board.
So it's just funny how some of these things happen.
Yeah, that's all kinds of incredible.
Okay, so the business takes off, right?
Like you found clients immediately,
money started coming in, it becomes more and more successful
but you knew that was not going to be your career
in its entirety going forward.
So at what point are you starting to think about
starting your own D to C brand?
Yeah, it was interesting because while I was running
the brand marketing agency,
I honestly couldn't imagine any other life.
I loved it.
I was living my best life.
I was in my 20s just traveling the world,
making money and hiring people I liked
and everyone was so passionate
because everyone was also like young and hungry
and I felt like I was able to build my dream company culture
and that was a big motivator for me with Baiba.
I was actually more motivated about an ideal company culture
versus just like marketing services.
I was very committed to proving that
you can have fun at work and still do amazing work.
So I did not have any plans to change paths
but then something very drastic happened in my life
and this is actually something that I don't talk about often.
I think it just took me by such surprise and shock
that it's taken many years to even put words into
but I lost my brother super suddenly.
I was traveling and I get a phone call
and my sad, my brother has passed away.
And I like just thinking back at that moment,
it's the biggest moment of despair
and pain that I can recall in my life.
Life as I knew it ended and I felt like a part of me went away.
I was incredibly close to him.
So going through something so traumatic
really creates a before and after.
And for me, it became a complete reset
on every aspect of my life.
Unintentionally, my body just shut down.
I don't know how to explain it.
I think only people who have had similar experiences
of grief can really understand
but it was not that I was home crying
and being sad all the time.
It was just my body shut down.
I could not get out of bed.
Nothing was fun.
I couldn't find joy in anything,
not even like a sunny day.
And it started to make me question a lot of things
and I think it also made me realize that
I had been on this hamster wheel for so long
just working for the sake of working
and it brought me a lot of joy
and it brought me a lot of success
but was it really aligning with my purpose?
Clearly, I'm a very capable person, right?
I can do a lot of things if I said my mind to it.
I had proven that to myself.
So if I can do anything, is this what I want to do?
And in an effort to get back into my own body
and get my life back,
I embarked on a very intensive wellness journey
of healing.
I started therapy weekly.
I started doing acupuncture every week.
I started seeing ac clairvoyance.
I was just seeking answers.
And then I realized that I needed to make
some changes in my life.
I had a year of no drinking, no coffee, no parting,
basically no traveling.
Like I just turned down the volume
on a lot of things to go inwards
and I reconnected with myself
and I realized that I've had the answers
within me all along.
I was just not able to see it
because I was running too fast.
And I reconnected with my heritage.
It was something that I hadn't always been proud of.
So a lot of people who had followed me for years
didn't even know that I was Latina
because I always just introduced myself as Swedish
because I grew up in Sweden.
And I had little by little shaved off
a very big part of my identity subconsciously,
which was my latinidad,
which has shaped me in so many ways.
My mom and dad immigrated from Chile
to Sweden during the Pinochet dictatorship.
Not by choice, they were political refugees.
This was survival.
And to this day, they only speak Spanish.
So I grew up in a very Hispanic household
where we only spoke Spanish.
And instead of making that part of my identity,
I tried to suppress it in order to succeed.
And I started to ask myself why,
how come I haven't found pride in my latinidad?
And I realized that a big part of it
is that I never saw people like me being successful
and being celebrated.
I never opened a business magazine
and saw a Latina boss woman building an empire.
I never read those stories.
I never saw people doing aspirational things
that I could relate to.
Not only do we not see enough women doing these things,
add being a Latina woman to the equation and there is zero.
So it made me realize that there is a lack of representation.
And we're paying a really high price for that.
And as I started to think about motherhood,
that was another outcome of this life reset
that happened in the after phase of losing my brother.
I was so afraid of motherhood for so long.
I was afraid of pregnancy.
I thought being pregnant meant being weak
and having a child meant the end.
And as I started to dismantle some of these beliefs,
I realized that that's not the world I want to welcome
another human into.
My kids are going to be latino kids too,
because it's in my blood.
And I would hate for them to feel ashamed of who they are.
And the only way I can change that
is if I change that within myself.
And maybe by me owning my own heritage,
I can inspire more people to find self acceptance.
And maybe with my vast experience in business,
I can also change the business world.
Maybe I can create a new benchmark.
Maybe I can become that story
that I wish I could have opened up in a magazine and read about.
And it really got me closer to my purpose.
And it planted the seeds for what today is ceremonia,
which is a clean hair care brand
that is very proudly rooted in my Latin heritage
and inspired by the rituals that I grew up with
as the daughter of a Chilean hairdresser.
So talk to me about that.
It's obviously a long and interesting and varied
journey to getting to a concept,
let alone actually executing on that.
So talk to me about starting ceremony.
Like you've come to this idea,
you know broadly what you want to make.
What were your next steps?
Because an idea and an actual product
can be quite far apart.
Yeah, so what was interesting was that before I even knew
that my company was going to be a hair care brand,
I knew that it was going to have something to do
with my heritage and help change the perception
of what it means to be Latin American.
And that research brought me into the beauty industry
because the Hispanic demographic is super large in the US.
I mean, I'm sure you are aware of some of these stats,
but we account for almost 20% of the US population
and we are the fastest growing minority in the country,
expected to reach 30% within the next 20 to 30 years.
And yet we have no representation.
We're also the biggest spenders when it comes to beauty
and especially hair care.
We spend 46% more on hair care products than non-Hispanics.
Yet there are no brands that are founded by us
on the aspirational beauty shelves.
So that became a big fuel for me
where I was like, I want to change that.
I need to change the gap between the consumer
and the consumer offering.
So I knew that I wanted to do something
that celebrated the Latin culture
and that became a representation for a community
that in my opinion has been completely overlooked,
even overlooked in diversity conversations.
And I am the daughter of a hairdresser.
So I had a lot of memories from how my dad cared
for my hair as a child.
He would give me scalp massages
and he would do his own cocktail of oils
that he would mix in with whatever drugstore product
he would buy.
He would like boost them with natural ingredients.
And he taught me about hair wellness starting
at the roots and like taking care of your scalp
as part of that.
But somehow I had lost that relationship
to beauty throughout my teenage years
and I had gone into this vicious cycle
of actually just damaging my hair
without even realizing it.
I was straightening my hair every day.
I was coloring it.
I was using the blow dryer.
I was using products to quote unquote tame my hair
and to fight the frizz.
But the reality was that none of these products
were actually doing my hair any service.
They were just masking the symptoms for the day,
packed with chemicals that were in the long run
causing even more dryness and damage.
So I realized that in order for me
to enter the hair space,
I needed to rewrite the script for the hair aisle.
I needed to introduce a brand that was actually there
to bring care into your hair care
and not just masking symptoms for the day.
The hair care aisle had been so focused
on makeup for your hair,
which is toxin filled styling products.
And I wanted to replace that with a wellness approach.
So I paired up with a chemist.
I had about $20,000 in savings
that I put into consumer insights studies
and my first product development session.
And with those consumer insights,
with that first sample and vision deck
for this launch product that was a scalp oil,
I went out to fundraise.
And I decided to go this route
because I knew from the get go that I wanted
to build a category leading business
in order for me to really fulfill my purpose,
I needed to do everything in my power
to set this company up for big success.
This was not gonna be a mom and pop brand
homemade in my kitchen.
This was gonna be a category disruptor.
I love this.
So walk me through the financial piece of this
and some of the funding.
So just so every windows, you are only one of 58 Latinas
to ever raise over a million dollars in VC funding,
which is wild on so many levels.
Bunkers.
I mean, like you should be so proud.
And also there's so much wrong with that statement as well.
But I'm glad that you did it.
What was the response like?
What was it like going through that process
because everyone has a very different experience?
Yeah, it was very interesting.
I actually feel like my precede round,
like my first fundraising round was the hardest one.
I encountered so much belittling doubt
and truthfully disrespect.
I even had a man ask Mina call.
This was doing the pandemic also mind you.
So the climate for fundraising was not ideal.
I'm sitting behind this screen.
So he can only see me from my chest up
and he asks if I have children and I answer no
because I don't, but I am pregnant at the time,
not publicly pregnant yet.
I haven't announced it yet.
And I got sort of like taken back by the question
because I didn't know how to fully answer it.
The real answer is that no, I don't have kids,
but I am planning to, but I didn't even get to that.
I just say no.
And he cuts me off and says, good.
You should definitely wait to have kids.
I would say at least five years
if you're going to do this business.
Cool.
And I'm like, yeah, thank you.
And then I hang up and I start solving.
I walk out to the kitchen where my now husband
was sitting working and I tell him about this encounter
and he gets so mad.
And he, I think, gave me that fuel
that I needed in that moment where he was like,
if that guy, I don't care what he thinks.
He's not even allowed to invest.
He's like, now you go out for a run, you clear your thoughts.
He's like, then you come back and it's revenge time.
He's like, the best revenge is just making this business
so big that one day he's going to come begging.
And I'm like sitting there like sobbing,
nodding my head.
I'm like, yes.
OK.
And it was just like, OK, get back up on the horse again.
And I kept running into similar encounters
like that.
A lot of people dismissing the opportunity
of the Latinx consumer too, which is also funny
because our brand is not even exclusively for Latinos.
Like, I always like to make the analogy of like,
there's so many, you know, French beauty brands.
It's not like they're only for French people, right?
So somehow, because I'm a Latina,
I'm only allowed to sell to Latinos.
It's strange.
Like the natural ingredients in Latin America
will work on any race.
Let me tell you that much.
So there was a lot of education that needed to happen
in the fundraising process.
And I did not have so much going for me
since it was pre-launch and it was pandemic.
And I was the first time beauty founder.
But I always try to remind myself
that rejection is redirection.
And it forced me to streamline my pitch more
because I was getting so many dumb questions.
And it forced me to fine tune it.
I was like, OK, so if there are a lot of dumb questions,
that means I need to update my deck to address those.
And ultimately, it also helped me attract the right investors.
And my early investors have been with me
on this journey throughout.
They have continued to invest as I've grown the business.
That's amazing.
So let's talk about your actual launch
of the very first product, the scalp remedy oil.
So given your backstory, I understand
why you start with a scalp oil.
But what was it like getting it to market?
What was the response like?
You obviously have this amazing marketing background.
But did it meet expectations?
Did it exceed expectations?
What was your internal thought process
and then what actually happened?
Yeah, I was definitely getting a lot of pushback
on the launch strategy from investors
because it was a little unusual.
Usually asking care brand or a hair brand,
they will launch with a full routine.
And it's usually like you're shampooing your conditioner
and your hair mask.
But as a consumer and a someone who had worked
on the marketing side with beauty clients,
I found that it was pretty hard to convince customers
to change everything about their routine
for a brand that came along two minutes ago.
It's like, why should I care about you?
So I felt really strongly that I needed
to hit the market like sideways with a hero product.
Exactly.
A hero product that is highly differentiated
and ideally that solves a need
that people might not even have been
practically thinking about.
And in addition to that, I also know
from the upbringing with my father
that true hair health begins at the scalp.
But when I asked around, most people
did not have a scalp routine in place.
So that was a huge opportunity.
I was like, I know the answer and people don't know it yet.
So what if I can go to market
with one part education and one part product solution?
And I think the downside with launching just
with one product was that it takes a lot of $25 products
to move in order for you to hit certain levels of revenue.
And also retailers will not launch you
with one skew that I learned.
But it was still perfect and genius for us
because we managed to get really close to our customers
and we built trust.
We sold exclusively online on ceremony.com
and we got to know our customers directly
because we weren't relying on any middleman and retailers.
And we started to get their feedback.
We started to get their requests.
And we heard early on that this oil was incredible.
It had changed the quality of their hair.
It is a transformative oil.
It has really transformed my hair
and I was super excited to bring it to market
and immediately after the requests
for shampoo and conditioner started to come.
Well, I love that because then they become
like a very trusted focus group.
Exactly.
So I actually am happy we didn't launched immediately
with retailers because the feedback loop
gets so delayed when you rely on a retailer.
And the retailers, not the customer either, right?
Like they're doing their best guesses.
But the real answer is with the customer.
So we launched exclusively online first
and then we introduced a shampoo and conditioner
then we introduced a scalp massager.
We introduced a curl cream
and that's when we entered retail
and we started with a smaller boutique retail.
We started with Crito who I am obsessed with.
I have been a Crito customer for years.
I trust them to my core.
They are, in my opinion, the authority of clean beauty.
So once we had Crito's stamp of approval
and once we ranked up to be their top three selling hair brand,
it was a much easier pitch to go to other retailers
with this success under our belt.
Yeah, that would open a few doors.
And just to give the audience a little context
around how business was going.
So since your 2020 launch,
you've tripled year over year revenue twice
and you have developed a full line of 20 products
plus ceremonia is also the first ever Latinx owned
hair care brand to be sold at Sephora,
talk about opening doors.
And it's now in over 500 stores.
That has to feel so incredible on so many levels.
What has the most meaningful aspect
of this level of growth been for you?
Honestly, the biggest joy of it all
is seeing how much it means to our community.
Not only are our community obsessed with our products
because I can very proudly say that we have
best-in-class products.
We have our own in-house chemistry.
We have created the formulas from scratch.
We are really spending a lot of thoughtfulness
into replacing common filler ingredients
with actual active natural ingredients
that will actually do something for your hair.
And we have 20 plus product awards from top media
and insane amount of five star reviews.
So I know that our customers love our products,
but more importantly, our customers want to see us win
because our win is their win.
When we entered Sephora last year,
I don't think I've ever seen so many social posts
from our community, especially our Latina community
because they saw themselves for the first time.
It was a community win.
It was not even about ceremonia.
It was about representation.
I think that's honestly what keeps my engine going
is just seeing how what we're doing is important.
And it might feel like, yeah, whatever,
it's just a beauty product.
But beauty is such a powerful tool
because it has the power to destroy your confidence,
but it also has the power to heal the relationship
you have to yourself.
And ceremonies really on a mission
to empower the sense of self-love
and self-care through beauty.
Needless to say, I can only imagine
that your recent series A round went a little bit
more smoothly, shall we say.
You've recently raised $10 million in your series A
in part to help open your flagship store in Soho.
I love brick and mortar,
but I'm curious about what your impetus is
for opening a store.
I mean, it feels natural, but I'm wondering
what you were thinking.
I mean, the main case for our series A
was our expansion with Sephora.
That's 500 stores versus our one little Soho flagship.
But the Soho flagship felt very important to us
because as we are in the world of Sephora
and out in the wild now in so many different stores
and so many places online and the brand has grown so quickly,
we felt like we needed a brand home
where we couldn't really live the brand out fully
and create a home for our community as well.
So the Sermonia flagship store is really meant to be
a Latin American oasis in the heart of Soho.
We worked with a Latin American architect.
We have collaborated with Latin American creators.
We have this amazing florist, that's Latina
and we collaborated with this little arts and craft shop
in Oaxaca to put some handmade items as decor
and it's really a tribute to the brand DNA
of Latinx representation and sharing it with the world
because I think the differentiator for Sermonia
from maybe some other Latinx founded brands in the past
is that we don't want to speak to our own eco-chamber.
Like Sermonia is a brand for all.
Since I grew up in Sweden, we also launched the product
in Sweden and we're the number one selling hair brand
at the biggest department store in Sweden
and not because they have a huge Latina demographic.
Let me tell you.
So that's success to me is when we're able
to reach the general population
and celebrate the richness of Latin culture
beyond the Latin community.
Ah, I just love this so much.
It makes me so happy.
Okay, so we like to talk about mistakes on this podcast.
So I'm hoping that you can tell me about a mistake
that you've made, whether with Sermonia
or in your career in general
and what you've learned from it.
Yeah, so I have such a funny relationship to mistakes
because I really don't live a life in regrets
and I truly mean it because I try to live a life
from a place of gratitude
where everything was meant to be.
Everything was hard of getting me where I am
and I am exactly where I need to be type of thing.
But some mistakes that I can point to,
I think is definitely not taking a break between jobs.
I look forward to one day having a sabbatical.
I also have two kids
and they have both come into this world
during the creation of Sermonia.
So it's been intense.
Yeah, I would say that's pretty intense.
So a lot of the people who listen
to this podcast are interested in making some sort of pivot
or leap for themselves,
whether that's within the same industry
or doing a whole big pivot like you did.
What advice would you give someone who's thinking about it
but just hasn't summoned up the courage to make the leap?
Yeah, I think that just knowing that
there is no such thing as the perfect timing
and you will get closer to the answer by just starting somewhere.
Like just start talking about it, start working on it.
I realized that the moment I announced
I was folding my agency to start Sermonia.
This was before launch
and I didn't even tell people exactly what it was gonna be.
It forced me on this timeline
and sometimes that's what you need.
You just need to get started
and the more you put in the more you get out of it,
that's just the reality.
So knowing that you don't need to have all the answers
figured out ahead of time,
you don't need to wait for the perfect timing
because unfortunately that doesn't exist.
You just have to create it
and sometimes you just have to trust your instinct.
So my last question is also my favorite question,
which is if you could go back in time
and speak with a younger Baba at any point in your career
and give her some advice, what would you say?
I would probably advise myself to lean into my strengths
and give myself permission to tap into my superpowers.
I think I had a lot of limiting beliefs growing up
that you had to be a starting way
in order to be quote-unquote a leader
or in order to be quote-unquote successful
and the reality is that success and leadership
looks different for everyone
and there is no one size fits all.
You just have to learn what works for you
because ultimately your life is only gonna work
if it works for you.
We're all different
and that's beautiful.
Well, Baba, thank you so much for your time.
This was such an honor and a pleasure
and I wish you all the continued success.
You have created a truly incredible company
inside and out and it was such a delight
getting to chat with you today.
Thank you so much, Hilary.
That was the CEO and founder of Ceremonia, Baba Rivera.
For more inspiring interviews with women like Baba,
head on over to SecondLifePod.com
where we have so many more for you to peruse.
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I'm Hilary Kerr and you've been listening to SecondLife.
This episode was produced by Hilary Kerr,
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And our music is by Jonathan Leahy.