Aug 12, 2019 · 54m · how-i-built-this
Serial Entrepreneur: Marcia Kilgore (2018)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of How I Built This, host Guy Raz interviews serial entrepreneur Marcia Kilgore about her journey from humble beginnings in Canada to building and scaling globally celebrated brands including Bliss Spa, Soap & Glory, FitFlop, and Beauty Pie.
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 30.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 1.6 Guest teaching 1.6 Guest disagreement 0.7 Guy pushing back 0.6
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 37:22 Reframing serial ventures as risk hedging
Marcia gently counters Guy's premise that launching concurrent companies is reckless, citing Adam Grant's 'Originals' to argue that real entrepreneurs diversify their bets.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 36:55 Guy presses Marcia on starting FitFlop amid Soap & GloryGuy directly challenges Marcia's decision-making, pressing her on why she would take on a third complex company while her second was still getting off the ground.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 42:15 Exposing cosmetics industry markup marginsMarcia breaks down the inner workings of luxury cosmetics manufacturing, revealing the disparity between third-party lab costs and retail markups.
Guy holds their own ▶ 27:55 Guy contextualizes the LVMH acquisition valuationGuy brings concrete industry reporting and valuation figures to probe whether selling a controlling stake so early was strategically sound.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arriving in New York and Early Personal Training | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz plays the curious interviewer prompting Marcia Kilgore to recount her arrival in New York, financial constraints, and early personal training days. Marcia shares the origin story of her skin issues and a traumatizing facial with open, narrative warmth. | |
| Skincare Crash Course to Launching 'Let's Face It' | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Marcia describes taking a skincare crash course, carrying heavy equipment to clients' apartments, and educating Guy on how facial techniques like steaming have become outdated. The conversation remains lighthearted and collaborative. | |
| The Founding and Rapid Growth of Bliss Spa | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy inquires about the logistics and financials of opening Bliss in Soho during 1996. Marcia details how an Irving Penn Vogue feature drove product sales that funded the build-out, emphasizing her egalitarian customer service philosophy. | |
| Acquisitions by LVMH and Starwood Hotels | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Guy asks why Marcia sold a 70% stake to LVMH while just hitting her stride, and later why she walked away under Starwood Hotels. Marcia transparently describes managing financial burnout, corporate audit absurdity, and clashes with inexperienced hotel managers. | |
| Creating Soap & Glory and FitFlop | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Guy questions the logic of launching FitFlop while still trying to scale Soap & Glory. Marcia politely reframes his question using Adam Grant's 'Originals', arguing that true entrepreneurs hedge their bets by juggling simultaneous ventures. | |
| Beauty Pie and the Psychology of Serial Entrepreneurship | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Guy explores Marcia's serial entrepreneurial psychology, lack of sentimental attachment to brands, and luck versus skill. Marcia breaks down the economics of Beauty Pie and candidly psychoanalyzes her internal competitive drive. | |
| How You Built That: Miles Pepper and Emma Cohen | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | A narrative produced segment featuring Miles Pepper and Emma Cohen discussing the creation of Final Straw and intellectual property theft on Kickstarter. The tone is entirely standard storytelling without friction. |
Statements from this episode (11)
Kilgore: Won Regional Canadian Bodybuilding Championships As A Teenager
“I won, let's see, Miss Southern Saskatchewan Middleweight. I think I also won, now, don't laugh out loud, Miss Moose Jaw.”
Kilgore: Early facial clients included Nicole Kidman, Demi Moore, Uma Thurman
“That was when it really Exploded, and everybody started to come in from Uma Thurman, I did Nicole Kidman, Demi Moore Annie Leibovitz came in.”
Kilgore's first skincare clinic had a 14-to-16-month wait list
“And at one point, probably after about two years, we were so busy that when people would call, they wouldn't be able to get an appointment for Anywhere between, you know, 14 and 16 months.”
A 1996 Vogue feature generated enough sales to fund Bliss Spa's construction
“It lasted probably for four or five months of, you know, this article having such an incredible effect on the sales of products out of our little facial place that a lot of the construction costs were almost covered by that one article.”
Big beauty conglomerates shifted to acquiring startups in the late 1990s
“So, retrospectively there were a lot of cool new companies starting, and a lot of interest in those companies from the big beauty conglomerates. They were starting to buy up smaller players rather than, you know, trying to build their own.”
LVMH divested most beauty businesses after 2001, selling Bliss to Starwood
“So LVMH, after 2001 they started to divest of most of their beauty businesses, and we were one of the first ones to get snapped up by another business. So Starwood Hotels and Resorts bought us because they wanted to have bliss bars, and they wanted to put thos…”
Soap & Glory reached $100M in retail sales within seven years
“Within, I'd say, seven, six or seven years, we were probably retailing about a hundred million dollars.”
True entrepreneurs hedge bets and avoid risking everything on one venture
“True entrepreneurs always hedge their bets, right? You don't give up your day job because you think that your, you know, side hustle or whatever it is, is going to actually pay off. You always do two things at the same time because one of them may not work and…”
Bath & Body Works offered to buy 500,000 pairs of FitFlops
“About a year before that, I had met with Bath & Body Works, and I explained the idea. And the buyer from Bath & Body Works looked at me and said, I'll take somewhere between 300,500 thousand pairs of those a year.”
Final Straw raised $1.89M selling collapsible straws on Kickstarter in one month
“And the big goal was 5000 straws, which would have been about 70,000 dollars. But we sold about 60,000 straws and closed a month later with 1.89 million dollars in the bank.”
Copycats patrol Kickstarter to clone viral products using provided campaign specs
“There's companies out there that are patrolling Kickstarter and looking to see when people throw a successful campaign. And as soon as they see that overnight success, Then they jump on it, and they use the measurements that are provided on the Kickstarter to …”