From Foster Care to Billionaire: Top Lessons & Reflections From a Beauty Founder and Luminary – Carolyn Aronson, Founder of It’s a 10 Haircare

Mar 18, 2024

50:32

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Carolyn Aronson is the founder and CEO of It’s a 10 Haircare, a professional hair care line that is dedicated to providing high-quality, luxury hair care products for every hair type.

Carolyn rose from a challenging background of foster homes and adoption to creating one of the most widely recognized and consumed haircare brands worldwide. Despite all this success, she definitely was no overnight success. Carolyn prides herself on working hard and learning from her failed brands and products before striking gold with the Miracle Leave-in Spray that really took off. She owns 100% of her multi-hundred-million dollar brand and the products are sold in more than 25,000 professional salons, thousands of retail locations like Sally Beauty, Ulta, and is now in over 70 countries around the world.

In this week’s episode, Carolyn talks to us about her upbringing as a foster care child and what she believes shaped her approach to entrepreneurship & her relationship with money. She also shares her experience as a hairdresser hustling to make ends meet for many years, how she lost everything when starting her first company, and how she didn't give up even after losing it all. Carolyn also tells us about the challenges she had to overcome in the process of launching her second haircare brand and the biggest learnings she had when it came to partnerships, product development, and so much more.

In this episode, we’ll talk to Carolyn about:

* Why entrepreneurs should, “crawl, walk, then run”. [02:30]

* Carolyn’s childhood upbringing and influences that shaped her financial literacy. [08:44]

* The mindset of avoiding wasteful spending. [13:35]

* Bootstrapping and managing financial growth.[15:35]

* How Carolyn deals with mental challenges. [18:29]

* Positive impact of foster care and adoption on Carolyn's life. [21:30]

* Transition to product creation alongside salon management. [23:24]

* Lessons from recovering after financial loss in previous business. [25:40]

* Navigating a male-dominated industry. [30:13]

* Graceful handling of challenges with experience. [32:03]

* Fearlessness in male-dominated environments from upbringing. [33:29]