Female Disruptors: Carrie Hadley of INDIEHOUSE FRAGRANCES On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

“Done is better than perfect” — I aim for perfection in everything that I attempt, but have come to understand that most of the time you’ve got to get it out there and then make it better as you go. I continue to be just so amazed and grateful to my amazing customers who, when I point out something that’s not working as smoothly as I would like, will usually say “hey, I think it’s great!” God bless them for their patience and kindness!

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Carrie Hadley.

Carrie Hadley is the Owner and Creative Director of INDIEHOUSE FRAGRANCES. She owns two locations, one in Alpharetta, Georgia and one in midtown, Atlanta.

As a Perfumer, Ms. Hadley is an artist who is trained in depth, on the concepts of fragrance aesthetics. She has a keen knowledge of a large variety of fragrance ingredients and their smells, She is able to distinguish each one alone or in combination with others.

Having studied the art in Europe, Ms. Hadley has now brought the concept to the United States. Her goal is to show her clients how to experience the fragrance niche at luxury brick and mortar locations. She plans to expand her growing business to more states across America.

Why did I open this business? What about this work is disruptive?

I’m a super curious person, so while studying perfume building with the thought of launching my own brand, I wanted to explore what other artists were doing. Trying to find the smaller brands and less mainstream scents was challenging here in Atlanta, and the only thing available to me in this area was the large department store or beauty chain experience.

Which for me, was completely overwhelming.

Shelves upon shelves of beautiful bottles that I didn’t want to drop and break with names that did not give me any idea what was inside. The Stockists were always very nice and would ask what I was looking for, but honestly most of the time I didn’t know because the options were not clear and I didn’t know the language.

Then I would spray one to test it and get it all over my hand or leather handbag — so now I’m wearing it whether I like it or not.

If I did find one that I enjoyed, there was never any information on what sizes the product was available in and what the cost was. I personally find it a bit embarrassing to have to ask the price of something, it just makes me uncomfortable.

It suddenly dawned on me that what the world needed was not necessarily another fragrance brand (there were over 2500 new brands launched in 2017), but that maybe my community here in Atlanta would embrace a new way to shop for unique fragrances — brands that would set them apart from the masses of mall shoppers.

When I reached out to some of the brand reps in NYC and LA, they told me that “Atlanta was not a sophisticated enough market to understand niche & high-end luxury fragrances, they only buy designer labels for show.” That didn’t sound like the Atlanta that I have lived in for the past 20 years. But just in case they knew something that I didn’t, I developed a workshop class to teach people about fragrances and to let them try their hand at creating their own.

INDIEHOUSE was born to solve all of the issues that to me, made the shopping experience less than ideal. I did about 18 months of research and found the most interesting Niche and Artisan brands to bring here to our Atlanta area store. All but 4 brands are exclusive to us in this market. To date we have made unique and beautiful fragrances with over 4,000 guests from all over the Southeast Region. And fun fact — I was right. The majority of our guests from Atlanta are indeed very sophisticated when it comes to Niche & Luxury fine fragrances.

What are you doing that’s disruptive?

Two things;

1. We make shopping for a new scent an enjoyable discovery experience. We believe that you already know what you like and what you don’t like, so we structure the experience, both in-store and online, to help you discover new fragrances to go with your different moods and outfits.
2. We are giving our guests the knowledge to make the best buying decisions for themselves. Who else is offering to educate their guests on how to shop for the product, explain longevity and set the expectations on how the product will perform? We are not afraid to give people the knowledge to understand how the product will perform and they reward us by returning to shop again.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When you are just starting out, every mistake is tied to money that you don’t have much of, so “funny” may not be the word I would use, but mistakes — yes plenty of them!

Oh, my goodness, the first two months of classes that I taught I did this amazing PowerPoint presentation which went through the history of perfume, literally starting in the Greek period, and continuing through to modern day. It took me one hour and a half to get through the material and I was having so much fun until one day a woman raised her hand and said, “I’m bored and came to make perfume, are you going to be done soon?”

I was mortified! It was a 2-hour class and it lasted for almost 4 hours because I was so excited to chat with people and share what I knew that I went on, and on, and on….!

It took her pointing out that not everyone wanted that level of detail for me to realize that not everyone wants to go down the rabbit hole. I revised the presentation to really focus on information that was interesting to most people and now we talk about things that to me seem really basic, but there are at least 4 people in the group every time who will exclaim out loud “OMG I HAD NO IDEA!!” and then I am reminded that little nuggets of helpful information make a fun experience, a 2-hour lecture on the history of anything is actually quite boring!

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

My first boss, Jamie Haberkorn at Leo Burnett Advertising in Chicago. I was fresh out of college and thought I was a BIG deal. One of my tasks was to take notes in the client meetings and write up a summary with next steps. Easy stuff for a communications major with a minor in writing. She handed that first one back to me coated in so much red ink you could barely see the color of the paper. She said, “you’re doing much better than the last few Account Execs — great work!” and she was completely serious. I learned quickly that high standards and attention to every single detail are critical if you are going to be successful in anything. She was passionate about making sure every detail was taken care of and that every issue was thought through from every angle. Meetings with her were brainstorming sessions with a detailed project list at the end and were ALWAYS productive. I tend to now lead like she did, getting everyone’s thoughts and sorting out who has the best skills to accomplish our goals, then letting them go off and get it done.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

“Done is better than perfect” — I aim for perfection in everything that I attempt, but have come to understand that most of the time you’ve got to get it out there and then make it better as you go. I continue to be just so amazed and grateful to my amazing customers who, when I point out something that’s not working as smoothly as I would like, will usually say “hey, I think it’s great!” God bless them for their patience and kindness!

“The Power of Broke” — Stealing this one from someone I admire greatly, Damon John. He advises against going out and getting investments and kick starters saying that you will hustle harder and learn faster when you are working with small amounts of your own personal cash. He is exactly right. You don’t throw around money on expensive influencers or video campaigns when you only have enough money to pay your current bills. We leverage the positive feedback from our actual guests to bring in more guests, using social media as it was intended, not as another advertising vehicle to spend money on.

“When you are going through hell, KEEP GOING!” — Winston Churchill. This just makes so much sense to me. If you are in the middle of a situation that is not going well, the only way to make it worse is to give up! There have been plenty of days leading up to getting this second store open where I have wanted to just say “forget it, move the opening to January, this was an unreasonable goal anyway.” We got the keys to the unfinished space Oct 1 and opened the store on Nov 26. Yes. I am very tired. But SO grateful to all of the amazing people along the way who said “Yeah, we can do that in time.”

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

In 2023 we are introducing a Personal Concierge appointment-based service and a custom bespoke scent creation experience in our Westside Provisions location.

In our Alpharetta Studio we will finally launch our Scent Blending 201 level class for guests who have taken the current workshop and want to try their hand at blending from over 200 notes in a 4-hour class.

At least once a week one of our guests will ask if we can put one of these INDIEHOUSE concept studio’s in the town where they live (Nashville, Birmingham, Boca Raton, Charleston) and I think there is a good chance of that happening some day in the near future!

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

Ugh — everything?!! I still find, after one successful store up and running that proves the concept is both solid and profitable, that people don’t take me seriously. From lawyers telling me that I won’t get what I’m asking for in the lease so I might as well not ask (WHAT??) to potential landlords not wanting to come and actually see the successful store but waiting until September to decide if they will lease to me when I told them in January of that year I wanted the space. That’s 9 months of time lost and then I have 6 weeks to do what I should have had 9 months to do. It’s beyond frustrating and I really do feel a lot of the time like I am pushing and pushing and pushing on people to get the basic things done. It’s exhausting and it takes energy and time away from how quickly I can build the concept to expand. Oh, and I have three kids a husband and 2 dogs, so this is not the only obligation in my life.

I will say as a counter argument, that it brings us together in strong ways that until you have experienced it few can understand. I have a fellow female entrepreneur girlfriend who hustles just as hard as I do and we are constantly sharing ideas and what worked and what bombed and keeping each other positive. I attend a women-only business owners networking meeting once a week to connect and share ideas & frustrations with other women. We don’t BS with each other — we are all willing to lay it out there and allow others to give perspective and support. It’s something I wouldn’t trade, and that I don’t see when I am at other business networking events.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!