Full Transcript for How Building Confidence Transformed My Career with Divya Gugnani

balancing family, you know, baby, business, personal life? How do you do that? [00:05:44] Divya Gugnani: Self care was always a priority for me when I had two children. I was like, okay, when I swim, mom swims and she's in the pool and like no one can bother me under the water. And I like have my precious time. Or when I go to the beach, I feel that incredible exhilaration of being underwater, feeling calm, feeling relaxed, being with my own thoughts. [00:06:04] Divya Gugnani: Now that I have a baby, like self care is just very challenging to be honest. Like I'm I'm on call at night, during the day, I'm working full time, I'm juggling three children's completely different various schedules that move in different directions. So I would say that self care has taken a little bit of a backseat, although one of my non negotiables is my daily meditation. [00:06:27] Divya Gugnani: I meditate, transcendental meditation, ever since I was in the seventh grade, twice a day, 20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes in the evening. It's the only way I stay grounded and sane. [00:06:37] Amri Kibbler: I am on the same page with you. It's like my thing that I do when I'm feeling exhausted, but it's also my thing that I have to do in the morning. And. If I don't do that, I just don't feel sane at all. Like I can skip the workout one day. I can skip like a ton of different things, but I completely go off the rails if I can't manage to squeeze in the meditation. [00:06:58] Divya Gugnani: Meditation and also walks. Like, I never did that before. I used to just be indoors all day, one zoom after the other zoom after the other zoom. Now I've actually carved out time in my calendar where I walk before I start my first meeting in the morning and I allocate like 20 to 30 minutes where I'm just outside getting fresh sunlight. [00:07:16] Divya Gugnani: Okay. Being in nature and just doing that for myself I sometimes take calls during that time And I have to do a little bit of work, but I often just like to just be alone alone with the baby because there's no alone anymore Take her for a walk. She gets that morning sunlight to set [00:07:33] Divya Gugnani: her day, and I get it for me, too [00:07:35] Amri Kibbler: well, this kind of leads into my next question. So, [00:07:38] Amri Kibbler: the title of our podcast is Leaning Into Being. What does that mean to you in your life? What is your place of being? [00:07:45] Divya Gugnani: I think I'm super passionate about entrepreneurship and my being is like, not only do I grow and learn from running Wander Beauty and running 5 Cents every day as an operator, I'm learning every day, and I want to always be learning, so my being is that I'm intellectually curious, and I want to be stimulated and be learning constantly, and WanderBeauty is my full time job, and being a part of 5 Cents and that incredible team, It's still just so rewarding in every way. [00:08:17] Divya Gugnani: And I think beyond that, I really try to immerse myself in the entrepreneur ecosystem by sitting on boards, advising and investing in so many other entrepreneurs and, and every single day I'm learning alongside them and I'm learning from them and I find that to be an incredible treasure. That is like my mission in life was to do this. [00:08:39] Divya Gugnani: I'm actually capturing a lot of what I've learned, particularly from my own fundraising journey, have having raised so many different types of capital over. Now I've been a co founder and CEO of five companies across different And [00:08:54] Divya Gugnani: So, I'm super excited about, um, Sharing everything I've learned as both an entrepreneur and an investor and sitting on both sides of the table in a new book that will be coming out in January, which is called Pitch Perfect. [00:09:06] Divya Gugnani: It is a Founder's Guide to Startup Fundraising and [00:09:11] Divya Gugnani: I cannot wait to share those [00:09:12] Divya Gugnani: nuggets with the world in January. [00:09:14] Erika Hanafin: I can't wait. am just so impressed by your entrepreneurial journey and also the businesses you've created. My eyelashes look so great because I only use Wanderer Beauty Mascara, And certainly we've been following along on your social journey as well. [00:09:29] Erika Hanafin: You've been sharing a lot more, one of my questions, kind of shifting the narrative here a little bit onto your work and your creativity. how do you identify the gap in the market for multitasking beauty products? What drives your creativity? [00:09:45] Divya Gugnani: that was a personal pain point. And I often find some of the best businesses that I've backed as an investor come from a founder who's uniquely positioned to solve a problem in the market because they have unique expertise that leads them to do that very effectively. So I had two children within two years. [00:10:02] Divya Gugnani: I was time starved on the go and simply exhausted. Period. The end. I was putting on under eye concealer on the subway from my Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan to Midtown Manhattan, so I would not scare my coworkers away with my dark circles. And when I was on the subway, I noticed that people were doing their hair and doing their makeup and doing their skincare. [00:10:22] Divya Gugnani: And I just felt like as a time starved mom on the go, who was a career mom, both, you know, working and taking care of children very actively in both avenues of my life. I felt I was not served by the current market offerings. There's so many artistry brands and makeup that tell you, you need, Lots of tools, lots of powders, lots of time, which I didn't have the luxury of. [00:10:45] Divya Gugnani: And in skincare, there's a lot of philosophies around 10 step routines, and you need this, and you need that. Like, I need effortless essentials as a human being. I want fewer things that do more, that work as hard as I do, and I want them across skincare and makeup, and I want to take them wherever

I wander. [00:11:02] Divya Gugnani: And so that for me, really, this concept of being gorgeous on the go. came alive for me. And so the first thing we did was survey over a hundred women who are anywhere from 18 to 72. And we asked them about the pain points in their routine. And so many of these people came back and said, I have these one trick ponies. [00:11:18] Divya Gugnani: I use this for that. And I use that for this. And like, they didn't have essentials that were multitasking. And so that really crystallized during Navigation of the customer journey of what was going on and the customer sentiment around skin care and makeup. We discovered that people really wanted multitaskers. [00:11:35] Divya Gugnani: They wanted an on the glow. That's like, you know, your blush, your lips, and your cheeks in one swipe. It's your highlighter on the other side, which is, illumination to the high points of your face, but also a cream eyeshadow and also serves as a body highlight for that post vacation glow. So, you We really took customer sentiment and customer feedback and allowed that to really serve as the true north in creating the brand. [00:11:58] Divya Gugnani: And that's why we built a community from day [00:12:00] Divya Gugnani: one doing exactly that. [00:12:02] Amri Kibbler: Divya, you have mentored so many women. Your name constantly comes up and you're also always creating these great bite sized pieces of content. What is the most popular question that you get from new entrepreneurs? [00:12:17] Amri Kibbler: What is something that keeps coming up over and over again? And how do you answer that question? [00:12:21] Divya Gugnani: The funniest thing is that people ask me the same question over and over and over again, should I start my business? Particularly, I get this from female entrepreneurs. They're like, I have this idea, I have this concept, I want to start, I'm not sure, I have a full time job, I'm not sure if I have the money, I'm not sure if I have the time. [00:12:37] Divya Gugnani: Like, Nike said it best. Just do it. The only way to learn is to physically do it. You learn from every experience. And what's the worst thing that happens? Fast failure. We actually like that in entrepreneurship. We reward it. Or like you fail fast, you learn the lesson and you know how to pivot and you realize in entrepreneurship that the only constant is change. [00:12:59] Divya Gugnani: Do you guys know this is living your business every single day? The model you start out with is not the model you end up with. The economic model, the customer model, the messaging, everything takes tweaks and pivots and adjustments around customer feedback. And that's what we learn. The only constant is change. [00:13:18] Divya Gugnani: And you have to listen with two ears and speak with one mouth. startups can take lessons from tech giants. If you look at Apple when they first launched, the iPhone was about short battery life and not great user experience and no durability. [00:13:33] Divya Gugnani: And they took all of that customer feedback into creating the best Newer and better versions every single year that really established themselves as a leader in the industry. And as a startup, you just have to do the same [00:13:45] Divya Gugnani: thing. [00:13:45] Divya Gugnani: ​ Hi, it's Erica and Amri from Leaning Into Being and we know Growing a tiny human is no small feat, which is why we've partnered with our friends at Motherhood Maternity because every mama deserves to feel held seen, and yes, comfy from belly to baby and beyond. Their pieces move with you so you can focus on what matters most. Being present. You can shop their latest looks at Kohls, kohls.com Amazon. Are US, Canada and motherhood.com be you? Be present. Just be Erica. How hard is it to create content while running a company? Let's be real amory. It's really hard. You've got the ideas, but turning them into consistent strategic content, that's a whole other job. Enter the content catalyst from Share Your Genius in just one 90 minute session. They help you turn your ideas into three months of high impact content, videos, articles, social posts, and more. We use them, we love them, and this is your sign to finally get your content off the vision board. Reach out and tell them we sent you. [00:14:49] Erika Hanafin: definitely heard all of the hats you're wearing. I want to know how you manage your time. [00:14:54] Erika Hanafin: negotiables for your boundaries that you set? [00:14:57] Divya Gugnani: I manage my time maniacally and it is the only way I'm actually able to achieve and accomplish what I need to do in any given day. And that's as a mother, as an entrepreneur, as an investor, as an advisor, like, I have to work that way. There's no other way for me to work that works for myself and works for my family and works for my team. [00:15:16] Divya Gugnani: So I get up early. I pretty much clear out early communications. I spend quality time one on one with my baby before the other kids are up. Then I wake the other kids up. We do breakfast. We all sit at the table together. Yes, I'm going to be totally upfront with you. I do work during breakfast. Like some people are like, meal, secret, don't use your computer like that. [00:15:34] Divya Gugnani: I work during breakfast. Like, I have meetings that start and I'm spending time with the kids. I often do three vocabulary words with my son during breakfast depending on what kind of mood he's in. [00:15:42] Divya Gugnani: So we're working on that. It's a work in progress, I then do my walk and then I I start meetings usually at 8. 8 is kind of like the beginning of my work day and then I do meetings almost back to back with like very short breaks to like pump, eat, bio breaks, um, and then I have time blocked off for email. [00:16:03] Divya Gugnani: And I often get up late. Even earlier than I need to get up to do deep work in the morning, depending on what I need to get done,

where I do it completely quiet, no interruptions and notifications from Slack, from WhatsApp, or my children being awake. And I find that I can concentrate and handle big projects that require deep thinking because by the time the evening rolls around, I used to be able to like burn the midnight oil and move through projects when all the kids were asleep. [00:16:28] Divya Gugnani: I just don't have the appetite for that anymore. I think I've evolved as a human and Even having this baby has changed my schedule a little bit. I used to just like be this night owl who could like do all this amazing work at night. Now I'm like, I physically turn all of my devices off at least 30 minutes before I sleep and I do not look at anything. [00:16:47] Divya Gugnani: And it's. required time for me to just unwind and get into the pattern of being able to rest. [00:16:52] Divya Gugnani: So work [00:16:53] Divya Gugnani: hard, rest hard, [00:16:55] Divya Gugnani: And manage my [00:16:57] Divya Gugnani: schedule to the [00:16:57] Divya Gugnani: minute. [00:16:58] Amri Kibbler: It's true. I used to be a late night work person trying to get things done at night. I think that motherhood makes you have to shift things around because you know that the first thing in the morning is the only time that nothing can come in and get in your way. And you're like zero [00:17:12] Amri Kibbler: in on it. [00:17:13] Divya Gugnani: Yep, and I also really allocate time for meetings so that I'm productive in meetings and I'm present and paying attention and also allocate time specifically for email. I don't check my email all day. So you'll notice for me, like, I don't intermittently check my email. I check my email at certain points of time in the day and then I get through it in batches very efficiently. [00:17:32] Divya Gugnani: And I will tell you one life hack for me is that if you don't need to do it yourself and a virtual assistant in the Philippines can do it for 10 an hour, you should be doing what you need to do and you should be outsourcing everything that's not core to your life. Whether it's like calendar invites or scheduling activities for my children, like. [00:17:51] Divya Gugnani: I need that support because I'm physically working and requiring to use my brain during the day all day, [00:17:58] Divya Gugnani: that I need that kind of administrative help. [00:18:00] Amri Kibbler: Eric and I sometimes talk about what's on our. To don't list. we got it from Fran Hauser. What is on your don't list? What don't you do? [00:18:09] Divya Gugnani: I don't do a lot of busy admin. I just don't have the time and I don't have the bandwidth and I don't have the patience. And I also don't want the screen time. So I don't like to be sitting in front of a computer like this. Nitpicking and checking documents or putting data together. Anything that can be automated is automated in my life. [00:18:24] Divya Gugnani: Anything that can leverage AI is leveraging AI. And anything that someone else can be [00:18:29] Divya Gugnani: doing at a lower hourly rate is being done by another human being. [00:18:32] Erika Hanafin: as a successful BIPOC entrepreneur, you've mentioned a few times how passionate you are about empowering women of color and women overall. could you explain to us what a BIPOC entrepreneur is and some of the challenges that you face that others might not immediately recognize? [00:18:50] Divya Gugnani: So what's really fascinating is that Women in general as a minority in the early stages of fundraising are truly discriminated against because if you look at the capital available in the venture ecosystem for high growth businesses and you look at what gets allocated to women it's less than two percent layer in the factor of being non caucasian and you're now at a fractional percentage and that's a reality not a fallacy and while the ecosystem is changing with more women and more of color being in those investor seats Investing in women that look like them and are like them, that change is very slow to happen and very slow to come by. [00:19:33] Divya Gugnani: And so the challenges are there. I think one of the things that you have to do is number one, acknowledge it, accept it, but don't accept it as defeat. it just means you have to work harder and present a better case for your client. Business, what I find so fascinating in the early days of being an institutional investor. [00:19:49] Divya Gugnani: I worked at a large multi billion dollar fund and people would come in my office and they would just like pitch me their idea like it was the best thing since sliced bread and the immense amount of confidence that went into these pitches of like you should write me a three million dollar check or five million dollar check or fifteen million dollar check with very little homework research data and results and traction Blew my mind, right? [00:20:12] Divya Gugnani: It truly blew my mind. And it's fascinating that now there's so much thought that goes into each data point that you present. And a lot of female entrepreneurs are very thoughtful about their businesses and really like to come to the table with institutional investors with true data attraction and present their use case. [00:20:30] Divya Gugnani: I find the biggest recipe for success for BIPOC founders and otherwise is confidence. [00:20:36] Divya Gugnani: If you are confident and you present that confidence when you walk in the room and you radiate it and you believe in yourself that's a very important skill and when you believe in yourself, others are going to believe in you. [00:20:49] Divya Gugnani: And outstanding brands and businesses are built by outstanding teams. You can never do it yourself, right?Outstanding brands and businesses are built by outstanding people. You need people to believe in you so that you can grow your business into this outstanding brand of business. [00:21:03] Divya Gugnani: When you believe in yourself first, that's

the first step in the journey to recruit that incredible talent that will be game changing for the success and trajectory of your business. And so investors want to see that confidence. They want to see that belief. They want to really feel it. And then they will write you a check. [00:21:19] Divya Gugnani: When you believe in yourself, you'll attract the right talent turn your vision into a [00:21:23] Divya Gugnani: reality, and you'll also attract the right investors. who are going to help you get the capital to [00:21:28] Divya Gugnani: scale and grow. [00:21:29] Divya Gugnani: Yeah, [00:21:32] Erika Hanafin: particularly for women and even more so for moms, is a huge topic Share with us what your advice would be to somebody who needs to build their confidence and what are some of the tools that they can work through to have the confidence to get to that point where they're feeling not only confident in themselves, but confident enough to ask. [00:21:52] Divya Gugnani: I believe that you have to own your own leadership style. No two people lead in the same way. I was a shy, introverted, Indian girl who used to hide in the kitchen when my parents threw big parties. And I used to literally hide in the kitchen. I took a job at Goldman Sachs as an investment banking analyst. [00:22:09] Divya Gugnani: And again, I used to like hide behind the numbers and sit at my desk. And I absorbed like a sponge, all of the leadership styles and skills from the people around me who all had different styles and skills. And I eventually, with creating my own businesses, created my own leadership style, which is uniquely mine. [00:22:27] Divya Gugnani: And it is an amalgamation of Be learning, watching, listening, and tuning into what is truly me and authentically me. I think that dialing into your authenticity and dialing into who you are and owning your leadership style is literally the most important thing. Like you can't be anyone else. Be you and find that leadership style and that will drive your confidence. [00:22:48] Divya Gugnani: When you are authentically you [00:22:51] Divya Gugnani: and you own your leadership style, that confidence really comes. [00:22:55] Amri Kibbler: I am having such a hard time right now, imagining you as a shy, little introverted girl there was hiding behind anything. Like you were saying that in my mind I'm like, wait, how can I picture? [00:23:06] Divya Gugnani: You asked for it. [00:23:07] Divya Gugnani: Any of my childhood friends or my parents, they will tell you exactly that. [00:23:10] Amri Kibbler: I know you talked about the confidence building, but what exactly was it that got you over it? Because that's a huge like shift in a person. [00:23:17] Divya Gugnani: think it was career success. For the first early years of my life, all I did was work hard. I worked hard in, Middle school to do well in high school. I worked hard in high school to get into Cornell. I worked hard at Cornell to get my first job in investment banking at Goldman Sachs. It was all hard work. [00:23:35] Divya Gugnani: I dialed in heavy into working hard because I could outwork anybody. I was like very thirsty to learn and to grow and that's just inherently part of my DNA. Then I think that as I I took steps in my career and elevated in my career. I built that confidence. I had zero confidence going into that job at Goldman Sachs. [00:23:56] Divya Gugnani: Like I was from Cornell, everyone in my analyst class was from Harvard or Princeton or from Wharton Business School and I had never studied business before. I didn't even know what a P& L looked like. Like, so I didn't go in with the confidence or the skills to master that job, but I outworked and outlearned everybody to be, title at the top of my analyst class. [00:24:16] Divya Gugnani: I incrementally in each job and role I took, built more confidence from being successful at what I learned to do. So then I became a private equity investor. I became a venture capitalist. And tuned in and dialed into my role in these different companies and learned and grew. And with success that I had in my career, I built confidence. [00:24:38] Divya Gugnani: And then when I became an entrepreneur, my first entrepreneurial venture was very successful on a small scale. And like, I owned it myself and it did super well. And I exited the company and I was like, everyone should have a success like that. My next company was a totally humbling experience and didn't go anywhere, but to shut the thing down. [00:24:53] Divya Gugnani: So, you learn from all of this. Humility is very important, but confidence also comes from having [00:24:58] Divya Gugnani: success. And when you work for it, you achieve that success and it, [00:25:02] Divya Gugnani: fuels your confidence [00:25:04] Erika Hanafin: you've definitely shared a lot of exciting things that you've worked on, exciting things for your kids. What are you excited about right now? [00:25:13] Erika Hanafin: What's, on the horizon that you can share with us? [00:25:15] Divya Gugnani: for the next phase of Wander Beauty. Like, we are Up to something very big and exciting, which I'm hoping we're going to announce relatively soon. So big news there. it's been amazing to lead this company and build it and grow it globally for the last nine years. It'll be 10 coming up for our 10th anniversary. [00:25:34] Divya Gugnani: I think we're going to be making a very, hopefully sooner than that big announcement. And, I'm very excited also to dial in and spend time on my passion project, which is Five Scents and that's my fragrance brand. We're I really have tapped into the notion of capturing your mood bottled. one of the things I shared with you guys is that I really lacked confidence and was shy and introverted. [00:25:55] Divya Gugnani: When I was a young girl, people used to tease me. I grew up in a completely homogeneous neighborhood and people used to say, Oh, you're Indian. You smell. Oh, no, you

don't smell. Your clothes smell like curry. And I, at a very young age, became completely conscious of my smell and my first job was a I went to CVS, I bought deodorant. [00:26:15] Divya Gugnani: I put it on my arms, my legs and every body part because I just like wanted to smell good. Like even on my arms and my stomach, there was deodorant that is not meant for those places. and then my father used to travel overseas for work and used to stop at London Heathrow Airport and Charles to call. [00:26:32] Divya Gugnani: And he always picked up perfumes for my mom. He started buying me all these duty free binis and I really channeled. Fragrance as a form of self expression and capturing, a moment or mood. AndIt became my DNA. So like even I was wearing makeup, wearing skincare or not, I always smelled good because I was so conscious of my smell and it gave me that kind of like inner confidence to like face the world and engage with the world. [00:26:57] Divya Gugnani: I needed that boost. Fragrance has been such a powerful part of my growth as a human being and my self expression and so I'm so passionate about launching this brand and tapping into moods like Life at the Party, which, We as young women remember those days as like, life at the party is confidence in a bottle. [00:27:15] Divya Gugnani: Channeling that emotion and capturing that mood is something I'm so excited about. It has purpose beyond just creating fragrance. being able to capture your mood bottled has been something I'm just so passionate about [00:27:26] Divya Gugnani: and I'm looking forward to really expand that brand and expand that business. [00:27:30] Amri Kibbler: So exciting. Okay, well, we're at our last question. We always ask the same question as our last question. What is one time that you can't believe you survived or that you're [00:27:39] Erika Hanafin: Well, [00:27:40] Amri Kibbler: about? [00:27:40] Divya Gugnani: I will tell you that I, at one point, was trying to sell a business and I was at the final contract negotiation stage. I had gone through the entire process. I had hired a banker, I'd gotten offers, you guys know how difficult and strenuous this can be on being an operator running a company and at the same time multitasking and wearing another hat of trying to Drive an acquisition, sell the business, and kind of, you know, move on, and you're at the 11th hour, and your contracts are about to get signed, and the entire thing fell apart, for various reasons. [00:28:15] Divya Gugnani: and I was devastated. Can you imagine months and months of work and years of work of putting energy into a company and you know, being so close to really monetizing that and feeling the success in a business? [00:28:30] Divya Gugnani: Physical way because you feel it emotionally in many days as you run a business and their highs and their lows and it can Be very challenging and lonely to be an entrepreneur but that moment where you build a company grow a company and sell a company is just something Very unique and special and then when the whole thing falls apart It's just it was so demoralizing and so difficult to pick myself up after that But everything happens for a reason and you [00:28:54] Divya Gugnani: know better things were to come [00:28:55] Erika Hanafin: We get it. We totally get [00:28:57] Divya Gugnani: You get [00:28:58] Divya Gugnani: it. [00:28:58] Divya Gugnani: If [00:28:59] Erika Hanafin: Well, Divya, thank you so much for being with us and sharing all of your beautiful insights and your beauty. we wish you so much success on this journey ahead. [00:29:10] Amri Kibbler: So fun. [00:29:11] Divya Gugnani: Thank you, guys.