Briogeo Founder Nancy Twine Shares Her Best Advice for Aspiring Female Entrepreneurs

The passing of her mother inspired Nancy Twine, founder of Briogeo, to leave her successful career in finance behind in order to pursue something she was truly passionate about. That passion project has since turned into a wildly successful hair care brand, but not without obstacles and incredible resilience on Twine’s part. 

In honor of International Women’s Day, we spoke with her about her journey as a female entrepreneur and CEO, her advice to other aspiring entrepreneurs, and the supportive community she’s found within the beauty industry — including her competitors. 

You've said that you were inspired to start Briogeo as you reflected on happy memories of mixing your own beauty products with your mom. But what gave you the courage to actually start a brand? 

I really wasn't inspired or passionate about the job that I was currently in and I had known that for quite some time. Despite that though, I would not have changed the experience because I learned so much. I don't think that I would've come this far with Briogeo had I not had that experience working in finance and being challenged, learning about negotiation and presenting, and working with teams, building teams, like a lot of that was just foundational skill building.

And after you lose someone, you do have this reinforcement of how short life can be. Why wouldn't you pursue something that you’re excited about? That really got me pumped in a way no other job had. 

It was [also] about assessing the risk. What's the worst thing that could happen? For me, that was pouring all of my life savings into starting this company, it not working out and having to either go back to school or get a job. And in the grand scheme of things, is that really the worst thing ever if that happens? 

I'm also a big believer in passion. I do think passion is this invisible force that allows you to tap into your superpower. And whenever you do anything that is rooted in passion, I think your odds of succeeding are that much higher because when you're passionate about something and you get met with adversity or challenge, it's not like you're gonna instantly say ‘Okay, I'm going to give up.’ That superpower is being able to say ‘Wow, I faced this obstacle that I wasn't expecting. Let me figure this out.’ 

What were the first few tangible steps you took when building the brand? 

I was actually on this panel the other week, for an entrepreneurial class, and one of the things that frustrated me a bit, is that there were all these students that were trying to crack the code in entrepreneurism. They were reading all these books and they think ‘If I do X, Y, Z, I'll be a successful entrepreneur.’ And for me, so much of entrepreneurship is really having the right mindset which ties back to what I was talking about before — being so passionate about something that, in your heart and in your mind and your soul, you're able to overcome adversities that you didn't realize were possible.

When I was thinking about pursuing this entrepreneurial journey, I realized that I was going to be giving a pretty major career in finance. So for me, pursuing entrepreneurism was something that was very methodical. I thought, before I just quit my job, ‘Is this an actual, viable idea?’ And so I actually spent a lot of time doing research into the natural personal care landscape. I ended up purchasing a lot of research reports. I wanted to get a sense of what analysts were saying. Was clean [beauty] just a trend that was going to go away in a couple of years? Or was it really an evolutionary shift in how people were thinking about purchasing body care, hair care and skincare?

I was also really thoughtful about building a business plan because I didn't want to just quit my job and be like ‘okay, now what?’ I wanted to have a plan that I could jump right into. So I did a lot of research and planning because it was a big decision and I was fortunately able to work my day job up until getting my contract with Sephora. 

A piece of advice that I do give people is don't just rush into it and leave it to the wind. It's a big deal to quit your day job and not know where you're going to get your income from. So the more research and planning that you can do in advance [the better].