Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Entrepreneurship is defined as the taking of significant risks in order to reap the subsequent benefits. Back in 1997, when Jennifer Walsh was laying out plans to create something new and unique, she wrote something on her whiteboard that remained posted until the day she sold that business in 2010. She wrote, “Risk is what you take to find chance.” wow if she ever took some major risks in her 25-year career as a beauty and wellness entrepreneur.
Jennifer Walsh
When asked about Jennifer Walsh and her rich history as a serial entrepreneur in beauty and wellness, two words come up time and time again: trailblazer and futurist. When Jennifer started her first business, there were very few female founders and none were undertaking what she set out to do. Ella’s goal was to change the way people shop for beauty products, forever, with the creation of Ella Beauty Bar.
Related: The beauty industry is booming. Improve your marketing strategies to make your beauty brand stand out.
Walsh began her career in investment banking and soon realized that she was not cut out for the corporate world. She became a makeup artist and became very well known, especially among celebrities. That job led to an invitation to a television segment in February 1997, where she discussed the independent and unknown brands she used in her work. One segment led to another, and the breadth of her response inspired her to risk it all and open her own store. Jennifer instinctively knew that having a weekly television presence was a great educational tool. Opening a store would be the perfect sales channel for that show. The internet and its app were just getting started, so it created the first omnichannel beauty brand in the US and grew into a multi-million dollar business that was eventually sold to Amazon in 2010. During that time, Beauty Bar created many firsts for the industry. and became the industry’s go-to resource for novelty.
In 2004, Jennifer and her team were the first to market in retail with the Curbside service. Jennifer got the idea in a strange place, Outback Steakhouse. She figured if a restaurant can do it, why can’t we? It became a very important part of her customer loyalty program. Jennifer even created the first vlog for the Entrepreneur Magazine website! She introduced the concept of making a video diary and diary of what it was like to run a booming business and at the same time there was 30 days left to open a new location in a new mall. If there was such a thing as going “viral”, this diary was it. Her videos went around the world multiple times and became a great story about how difficult it is to run a business of any size, but especially a small business that was expanding rapidly.
After the sale of Beauty Bar, Jennifer was in high demand for CEO positions in beauty, as well as many other endeavors within the beauty space. Jennifer chose the opportunity to help develop the US footprint for an Amsterdam-based beauty brand under a one-year contract. When she finished that project, she began mentoring many other brands and continued her work on the air, but now she began appearing on business shows almost daily to talk about retail sales, entrepreneurship, and marketing strategies.
Jennifer, the consummate creator, had her next big idea and one that surprised many. By 2014, Jennifer put, as she puts it, “all her chips” into her next big effort. She created another first to market, a complete bath and body care line for the college market. She quickly created products for 8 universities in the SEC (Southeastern Conference). Being part of a licensing program, especially at the university level, was huge. Jennifer was speaking to every school about women in business and entrepreneurship. Looking back now, Jennifer saw the writing on the wall quickly that she couldn’t scale at the speed she needed to keep up with the market; her track wasn’t long enough. At this point, Jennifer was leading a headspace that wasn’t one of growth, but more of desperation and brought in two people who didn’t fit in every way with what she set out to create. It took Jennifer longer to create the brand and the products than the actual shelf life of this brand. Not only was she heartbroken, but she also had to decide what to do next. It was a huge blow not only to her own personal finances, but also to her personally and what she thought of herself. Jennifer took a big step back in 2015 and that step back led her to find healing by walking in Central Park. It was the only place where she could block out the noise of what was happening in her own world, which so few people knew about.
Related: How to Work in the Fashion or Beauty Industries
When he closed Pride & Glory, he went back to nature and found solace and purpose and began planting the seeds for his current work of encouraging people to understand the benefits of going outside. He created Walk with Walsh, a video series of conversations with thought leaders and many confided in him that they spent a lot of time indoors and this walking interview felt great. After a dozen interviews, all with the same sentiment from his guests, she asked why these healthy leaders wouldn’t come out, especially when they know he feels so good. This question and Jennifer’s insatiable quest for knowledge on any subject made her dive headfirst into anything she could get her hands on. What was happening to us in nature and why didn’t we go outside?
This aha and questioning was the beginning of Jennifer’s next chapter and where she resides today. Jennifer always knew that her decades in beauty and wellness matched nature. Looking back over 20 years, Jennifer can reflect and say that nature was a part of her life and business of hers in such deep and profound ways. Even the physical locations of her were so unique that people often asked to buy exhibits of her. Everything about her in her stores was deeply connected to nature and she became the first multi-unit retailer to implement biophilic design, which has exploded in recent years. Biophilic design is about bringing nature indoors for health and wellness. All thanks to the pandemic, Jennifer has become the go-to source for understanding the health implications of time spent outdoors versus what happens when we experience Nature Deficit Disorder.
With her friend Monica Olsen, she created the “Biophilic Solutions” podcast that explores how businesses and homes can incorporate more nature into our daily lives and has become one of the highest-rated nature shows globally.
In any given week, Walsh may give a keynote address, be a guest on a podcast, appear on television, lead multiple wellness walks for corporate teams, or advise brands on how to be more regenerative vs. just sustainable and how to position their brands. products. . He is also working with hotels across the US on their walking and outdoor programs. Her Back to Nature wellness programs for corporate clients have kept her busier due to the pandemic. That’s when all of her work thus far became the conduit for why she’s always called a futurist. The explosion in nature’s economy that you’re seeing now in 2022 started for Jennifer in 2015, but if you really think about it, she started in 1997 with Beauty Bar.
Related: How Destiny Snow’s Success Happened, SnowGlam Collection CEO
Jennifer recently partnered with Prevention magazine to write a book, Walk Your Way Calm. She has become an advisor to the Brain Health Initiative as well as UPenn, Center for Neuroaesthetics. Jennifer has so much more up her sleeve with our connection to nature and human and planetary health, so keep an eye out for all that’s to come. The best place to follow Jennifer is on IG, @thejenniferwalsh, or her website, www.walkwithwalsh.com
Source: www.entrepreneur.com