Making Something From Nothing: Dr Tara Lalvani Of Beautifect On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Make sure you surround yourself with the right people. I’m really fortunate that within my circle there are other founders and business leaders who I have been subconsciously shaped by, the mentality is ‘how can we accomplish this’ rather than ‘this won’t work’. You need to be prepared to fail; failures can lead to success! People who have taken a similar journey to you will understand the sacrifices and difficulties you have to make and can keep you pushing forward in the right direction.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Tara Lalvani.

Dr Tara Lalvani is the Founder & CEO of revolutionary direct to consumer global beauty brand, Beautifect. Harnessing the latest advances in technology and engineering, Tara exploded onto the beauty scene with the sell out game-changing beauty device, the Beautifect Box.

Its innovative tech combined with premium craftsmanship empowers women to make their lives easier while enhancing their daily routine. Pioneering a niche in the beauty market with a range of new beauty tools and devices, Tara is pushing boundaries for women and female entrepreneurs globally.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

From a young age I always wanted to help people. I loved science at school and then I went on to graduating as a dental surgeon from a leading dental institute around 20 years ago and started my career in making people smile! Juggling a family and career I began to notice everything about the way I was getting ready and doing my makeup felt outdated and wrong. In a world where everything is available on demand, why isn’t our makeup? I was having to leave my family and go to a different room, be tied down to one place with poor lighting and rummaging through messy makeup bags! I remember moving a full length mirror across the room everyday to prop in front of a window to try to get enough light! After unsuccessfully searching for a solution, I set out on a mission to create one myself and make people’s lives easier. Something we routinely do shouldn’t feel like a chore, but should be simple, enjoyable and effective. I want people to feel good and confident about themselves every day and that’s the reason I created Beautifect.

Can you please give us your favourite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Whether You Think You Can, or Think You Can’t … You’re Right” This has always resonated with me, we often put so many limitations on ourselves, our abilities and our dreams. Your attitude towards something has the biggest impact. When you believe you can, your mind and body figures out a way but equally when you tell yourself you can’t, your mind and body give up on figuring it out and you simply can’t do it. Attitudes are contagious and will shape your trajectory for better or worse; if you don’t believe in yourself who will? I’m happy to say that I am living testimony that thinking and believing you can and acting on that can truly change your life. I want others to stop holding themselves back and start believing in themselves and see the difference it will make. If you can dream it, you can do it!

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I watched the movie ‘Martian’ around the same time I started the Beautifect concept and it immediately resonated with me and where I felt I was at. Being an entrepreneur with a new to market concept can be an incredibly isolating and lonely journey at times; you have to be your biggest advocate and motivator whilst developing a positive and action taking mindset to see through the tougher days. The Martian is essentially a story about perseverance, you have to be determined to make a success of things. You will come across many hurdles and just when you think one thing is working, new obstacles are thrown into the mix; but you have to work through it. The same is true with an entrepreneurial journey, no matter how challenging, in order to be successful you cannot give up.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

The answer to this is actually really simple, but we often over complicate it. You must just take action. My daughter actually once said to me ‘you can’t do anything until you do it’ and it really is that simple. We focus too much on the issues, talk ourselves out of things and stay in our heads for far too long. Lack of confidence in yourself and your concept will just leave it on the back burner. All this wasted time thinking about how to start could be spent taking action and moving forward. In this day and age everything is at our disposal; the internet is at our fingertips so you can search the areas you are not confident in and get moving. Don’t look at it as one giant overwhelming journey, break it down step by step and do one thing each day that develops your idea further. I think of it like this; If I think too much about going to the gym, I won’t go and I’ll just waste time. If I don’t think about it and just take action and get out there; I’ll get it done. Stop thinking and start doing! So in summary: Dream big, set goals and then take action! The Beautifect Box is now a highly in demand beauty must-have that has sold out multiple times. It is making a real and tangible difference to people’s daily routines and this wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t take decisive action.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

This is exactly where I started. I couldn’t believe a concept so convenient didn’t already exist so I researched extensively! Google is extremely useful — search all the key words that could be associated with your idea and then see what patent applications may exist. You also can’t go wrong with simple market research and asking your target audience whether they already have something that fulfils the needs of your idea. If you find that it doesn’t exist then the next step is to research into whether there is a genuine need for your product; just because you want it doesn’t mean there aren’t legitimate reasons it doesn’t yet exist. As a last resort you could always hire legal aid and patent attorneys to assist with this.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

Once you have your idea or concept you can file a provisional patent, this essentially lets you claim the idea for 1 year. Filing the non-provisional patent comes when you have a fully formed concept. It’s a lengthy and specific document so your design needs to be complete. Getting approval from this involves a lot of back and forth which you can expect to take a few years.

Manufacturing wise — start by interviewing some to get a better picture of what products they currently manufacture and whether there are any synergies or conflicts with your concept. Find their limitations, if they don’t work with the materials you require you may have to look elsewhere or combine manufacturers. It’s also worth figuring out at this early stage if they will be able to scale with you, if their operation is limited to what capacity they can produce then you may find yourself having to move manufacturing elsewhere as you start to grow which would obviously be a huge disruption.

You can either give retailers periods of exclusivity or approach multiple. If your product doesn’t speak to their clientele it may not be the right retailer. My one piece of advice is to find a retail partner that shares your core values and understands your brand mission so they can represent you well, essentially you are giving up some control here so you want to make sure it’s in good hands. Our first retailer was Harrods, the UK’s number 1 luxury goods retailer, which was perfect for us as their clientele are always looking for luxury and expect a certain level of service of which we pride ourselves on. Being in demand by such a high end establishment meant we could immediately position ourselves in the right market, we’ve gone on to be one of the top sellers in the beauty hall with our Beautifect Box and beauty tools, so naturally this opens up further opportunities for retail success.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

1 — Make sure you surround yourself with the right people. I’m really fortunate that within my circle there are other founders and business leaders who I have been subconsciously shaped by, the mentality is ‘how can we accomplish this’ rather than ‘this won’t work’. You need to be prepared to fail; failures can lead to success! People who have taken a similar journey to you will understand the sacrifices and difficulties you have to make and can keep you pushing forward in the right direction.

2 — Take time to hire, but be quick to fire! Your team is everything. If one person has the wrong attitude it can bring the morale down for everyone. The pressure for high growth makes it tempting to hire quickly but this may just cause you more issues in the long run. Being selective and creating a dynamic team of individuals who can work together naturally is a win for everyone.

3 — I’m fortunate to have an entrepreneurial husband who is well versed in the trials and tribulations of leading a company; so there were no rose tinted glasses for me, I knew I would face obstacles and that I had to be mentally prepared for a multitude of new challenges coming my way. He told me early on that running a company would involve putting out fires out every day so I feel like I was prepared as he certainly wasn’t wrong about this; and I think it’s important to have a deep understanding that when you are at the helm of something, those final decisions are ultimately yours and you need to be able to lead and be willing to feel uncomfortable in order to grow. Nothing great was ever achieved in our comfort zone.

4 — Patience is key. When you’re working with innovation and new products you need to be prepared for longer timescales than you first envision. Getting it right takes time, but with patience you gain resilience; this will in turn help you avoid hasty decision making and the rush to ‘get it out there’ before it’s truly ready for the market. Be adaptable, an idea may start one way but take on a totally different outlook so you must not get caught up trying to always stick to the original plan.

5 — You don’t have to have all the right answers, but do ask the right questions. Just because you have a concept that you truly believe in and have taken the brave decision to lead a company, doesn’t mean you’re automatically going to know how to do it all. It’s okay to ask questions, seek out mentors and get things wrong. As a leader you should be curious and continuously asking questions. The landscape is always changing, the more you seek to understand, the further you will develop all aspects of your business.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Initial sketching of your idea, how is it going to look? I actually used my kids arts and crafts to make a 3d version of my sketch — using whatever is available to you is absolutely fine at this stage! I then researched into companies to help with the engineering. Once you do this you can aim towards a working prototype that will lead you onto the manufacturing process.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

For me, I would take it as far as I can on my own before getting anyone else involved. Beautifect really was my baby and I designed everything from scratch. There may be some technical aspects to your invention that you need specialist assistance with; but until that point I would say stick to your guns! That way it can stay as closely tailored to your vision as possible.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

I bootstrapped using all my savings from my dental career, but it depends if you have the capital. If you’ve got the capital and you truly believe in your idea, why give away part of your company. If you don’t believe in your idea and business plan, why are you doing it in the first place?

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

My mission with Beautifect has always been to empower others. Beauty can be an overwhelming and overcomplicated world that we have to deal with daily; Beautifect is changing that by giving people the tools they need to take back precious time, look their best and feel confident. I suppose this is my small way of contributing! As an extension to this, it’s important to streamline your beauty routine by using products that are built to last and not to overcomplicate things, this means overall you cut down on wastage. We’ve backed this up by our tree plantation initiative to offset our environmental impact too.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Thank you! I’d love to see more people being genuinely happy with where they are in their journey. I think not letting your past define your future is key to this. I was a dental surgeon in a completely different field with years of development in that specific world under my belt. I wasn’t defined by that. It is never too late to change direction or chase a new goal or dream. Everyone deserves to feel happy and not trapped. That’s the beauty of being human, we are adaptable and continuously on a path of growth! It should be something to embrace and not fear. Beautifect started as a single product; it is now a rapidly expanding brand with multiple leading beauty tools loved globally. You’ll never know what you are capable of unless you believe in yourself.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Sara Blakely! A fantastic business leader who has inspired many female entrepreneurs, myself included. Her fierce work ethic and passion for empowering women not only through her products but her business mentality is incredible. As someone who successfully self-funded and grew her business on an exponential global scale I would love to ask her about pivoting ever changing industry landscapes, innovation and how she scaled without losing her sense of brand identity.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

It’s been a pleasure, thank you for having me.