Sep 11, 2023 · 1h 1m · how-i-built-this
Jack Black Skin Care: Curran and Jeff Dandurand
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Curran and Jeff Dandurand share the entrepreneurial journey of building Jack Black into a hundred-million-dollar prestige men's skincare brand, navigating early distribution blunders, financial strain, and intense retail competition to achieve category dominance.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 35.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 2.0 Guest teaching 1.9 Guest disagreement 0.3 Guy pushing back 0.9
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 56:30 Jeff rejecting lowball buyer
Jeff recounts aggressively confronting a prospective buyer who reneged on their acquisition terms after accessing trade secrets, telling them Jack Black could grow faster without them.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 36:35 Guy questioning McConaughey PR placementGuy pushes back on the unverified celebrity endorsement story placed in InStyle magazine, pointing out the legal and factual dubiousness of running the mention without proof.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 14:47 Curran differentiating grooming from cosmeticsCurran firmly corrects Guy's assumption that they were making decorative cosmetics like concealer, explaining the entire product architecture centered on functional skincare and shave grooming.
Guy holds their own ▶ 38:45 Guy drawing parallel to Guayaki consumer educationGuy demonstrates deep business acumen by linking Jack Black's retail challenge of educating indifferent male shoppers to Guayaki Yerba Mate's category education struggles.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Curran's Rapid Rise at Mary Kay Cosmetics | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Guy Raz clarifies Mary Kay's direct-selling business model and prods Curran and Jeff about their early dates. Curran lightly corrects Guy's description of Mary Kay as 'direct marketing' to 'direct selling'. Jeff and Curran playfully disagree on whether Jeff lied about the Cancun trip. | |
| Resignation from Mary Kay and Family Financial Risk | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Curran describes her rise and departure from Mary Kay, noting the financial risk involved given that Jeff worked on straight commission. Guy asks sympathetic questions about their personal finances and marital risk without tension. | |
| Brainstorming Jack Black with Emily Dalton | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Curran quickly clarifies that their business was personal care and luxury grooming, not facial cosmetics like concealers. Guy compares their approach to existing prestige lines like Clinique for Men. | |
| Mid-Episode Interlude: The Pivot to Founding | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Mid-episode interlude and ad break transition. Monologue host framing with no guest interaction. | |
| Jeff Joins as Sales Lead and Targeting Golf Clubs | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | Jeff recounts initially calling the concept crazy before seeing the market research, while Guy presses him on the financial risk and unrealistic revenue projections. Both Curran and Jeff openly admit their early five-year forecasts were far off. | |
| Developing the Name, Identity, and Masculine Packaging | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Guy and Curran discuss branding inspirations, joking about the contrast between rugged masculinity and actor Jack Black. Guy prompts Curran on the diamond-shaped liquor/cigar label aesthetic. | |
| Crafting Lightweight Formulations and Fresh Aromas | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Curran explains the formulation challenges of men's skincare, specifically highlighting the aversion men have to greasy textures and overpowering scents. Guy listens collaboratively as she details custom formulas and eucalyptus/peppermint profiles. | |
| Cold-Calling Country Clubs and the InStyle PR Breakthrough | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Curran and Jeff recount the PGA Orlando disaster where sample tubes exploded and Jeff smashed the expensive wooden display. Guy questions the legality and verification of the InStyle Matthew McConaughey PR mention, which Curran acknowledges was classic 2000s media wild west. | |
| Entering Department Stores and the Power of In-Person Sampling | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | Guy draws an analogy to Guayaki Yerba Mate regarding the challenge of changing customer behavior. Curran details how discovery of star salesperson Elaine Syke at Nordstrom led to their three-step in-person sampling conversion strategy. | |
| Mid-Episode Interlude: Looking Ahead to Sports Partnerships | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Guy resumes after the mid-roll and asks about the marital strain of co-founding during unprofitable years. Jeff and Curran candidly discuss marriage counseling and setting boundaries around business fights. | |
| Fabulously Frugal Operations and Hyper-Competitive Retail Floors | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Curran describes their 'fabulously frugal' culture, and Guy asks whether their modest size shielded them from rivals. Curran corrects that perception, explaining that small retail shelf space made the category hyper-competitive with ruthless competitors. | |
| Entering NFL Locker Rooms and Dallas Cowboys Luxury Suites | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Guy asks whether NFL suite placement and locker room presence meaningfully moved revenue. Curran explains the immense credibility and organic inbound interest generated from the 2011 Dallas Super Bowl. | |
| Achieving Category Dominance and Deciding to Exit | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Curran explains reaching 35% luxury market share and why the trio decided to seek a liquidity exit after nearly two decades. | |
| The Predatory Acquisition Attempt and Due Diligence Heartbreak | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Jeff recounts the devastating story of a predatory corporate suitor who spent nine months in due diligence obtaining formulas and sales data before reneging on price. Jeff recalls his fiery response when they claimed they could only grow the business by 15-20%. | |
| Acquisition by Edgewell and Reflections on Luck and Hard Work | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy closes with his signature luck vs. skill question. Jeff attributes their success heavily to luck while Curran balances it by emphasizing operational resilience and hard work. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Dandurand: Mary Kay phantom share options helped fund Jack Black's launch
“The owners, which were Richard Rogers and Mary Kaye, Ash decided to take it private, and so that was an important milestone for the company, and it also afforded me some phantom share options that they granted to key people which I was later able to use to hel…”
Dandurand: Mary Kay became bureaucratic and hired an unqualified CEO
“Well, I think towards the end of the time I was there, it got very political, more bureaucratic. I felt like I was solving the same problems over and over. And then they brought in a new CEO that I didn't think had the chops or the experience or the knowledge …”
Dandurand: Men's products were only 0.1% of Mary Kay's business
“Mary Kay tried it. It was like .1% of their business.”
Dandurand: Legacy cosmetics failed with men by repackaging women's formulas
“They basically cost reduced their women's formulas, put it in stock gray packaging, and put it on the shelf with the women's stuff and never supported it.”
Curran Dandurand launched Jack Black with nearly $500,000 in personal savings
“Close to half a million.”
Advisors warned Jack Black co-founder against partnering with married couple
“She had some advisors, some lawyers that were like, you don't want to get involved with a married couple. Like, what if that goes off the rails? And also, you know, with Jeff and I combined, if we voted against her, you know, we could go, hey, we just want thi…”
Dandurand: Jack Black trademarked brand name before actor's breakout film
“We had already trademarked the name and locked into that and designed the packaging when he had his first movie.”
Dandurand: Competing men's skincare lines were strictly white, gray, and brown
“It was a royal blue, and at the time, the men's lines were white, gray, and brown.”
Jack Black launched with custom formulas from Mary Kay manufacturers
“And we went to three different contract manufacturers that we had worked with at Mary Kay. So we knew the people and they were willing to work with us. And we, all the formulas were custom.”
Dandurand: Men strongly object to heavy, greasy skincare formulas
“Men really object to heavy, greasy, kind of, occlusive feelings, so the products were very sheer and light and didn't weigh heavy on the skin, which was important.”
Jack Black's 5,000 launch mailers were returned due to address error
“We designed this mailer that featured our product line, beautiful photography, and we mailed it out to all these 5000 buyers that Jeff had carefully researched, and we didn't design the mailing panel correctly, and the post office read the return address as th…”
A 2000 InStyle feature linked Matthew McConaughey to Jack Black products
“So Emily was based in New York, and she was really hitting the streets, you know, talking to the editors, trying to get some ink on Jack Black, and she landed a meeting with InStyle, and she shared the Matthew McConaughey tidbit, and they Published it in Septe…”
Dandurand: Hooking men on skincare requires leading with shaving products
“Well, our strategy was guys understand shave product. You hook them with just a superior shave cream, and that was our hero product.”
Dandurand: Men's grooming retail adoption requires labor-intensive one-on-one store engagement
“You had to pull the guy in because he's not just walking up going, I'm looking for grooming products. He's walking by and you're literally chatting him up and pulling him from what he's doing and bringing him over to your area. Yeah. And that's what we had to …”
Jack Black co-founders took no salary for about four years
“We didn't pay ourselves for maybe four years, pay ourselves at all, and, you know, you're just, you're struggling to survive, and your family's all in on it, right?”
Dandurand: Co-founding a company severely strains a marriage
“I advise other couples that are thinking about starting a business. It's going to really Strain your marriage, because you could disagree at work and have a heated discussion. If it's not your husband, you come home, and you don't have to see that person that …”
Dandurand: Jack Black grew credit line to $1M using personal stock guarantees
“We were operating with a line of credit at that point that was expanding. You know, I think initially it was two 50, then it was 500, then it became a million dollars, and that was within Five, six years of starting the business, and of course, there weren't a…”
Curran Dandurand: Men's skincare retail was more brutal than women's cosmetics
“It was even more brutal than the women's because the total size of the market was so much smaller. The space you were granted on the floor was smaller, but yet there were so many more people wanting to get a piece of it.”
Dandurand: Jerry Jones' use of Jack Black sparked Cowboys stadium co-branding deal
“The Joneses were building the new stadium, and it was gonna be the absolute epitome of luxury stadiums, and Jerry Jones used Jack Black, and we were invited to meet with them about putting our products in the luxury suites. And we would co-brand the products, …”