“Well, I sold the rights to Bobby Brown, to Estee Lauder when we sold the company, so I couldn't use it again. And why would I wanna do something that I've done before? So we needed a name because I wanted to launch Jones Road the day my twenty five year non compete was up. It was in 2020, a week before the presidential elections, and so I needed a name and I didn't have one. And I was driving to the Hamptons with my husband, my head was down on ways, and I looked down, I saw Jones Road.”
“Jones Road has been following a different playbook. We are direct to consumer. Probably 85% of our business is direct to consumers through our own site, just online. And now we have 10 or 11 retail stores. We're in one, account department store, Liberty in London.”
“Well, first of all, there's nothing easy in life in general. But if you're a kid that is just coming out of college or even business school, I'd say go work for someone for a year. You know, go really, like, learn what you can before you start something, and and maybe start ideating and thinking what your company would be before you decide to do it. Don't start with a deck and investment. Like, people make that mistake. Start with a product.”
A chance party encounter landed her first Bergdorf deal
“And then one day, we're at a party, and I said, you know, thank the hostess for inviting us. I had never met her before, and she said she was a fan of mine. I'm like, oh, you know who I am? That's so nice. I said, what do you do? She said, oh, I'm a cosmetics buyer at Bergdorf Goodman. I said, oh, I sell these cosmetics out of my house. And she, agreed to take them and sell them at Bergdorf.”
Bobbi Brown signed an unusually long 25-year non-compete
“You know, I didn't know because when we sold the company and my husband said the deal is done, however, they want you to sign a twenty five year non compete. I was around 34 years old, and I'd never heard of a non compete, let alone thought about a twenty five year one. But I thought to myself, well, it's not a problem because I'm not gonna wanna work when I'm in my sixties.”
“And at the end of the year, I told my mom I was gonna drop out, and she said, you can't. You have to go to college. She never did. Mom, it's so boring. And she said, forget about anything. Forget what you wanna do. If today's your birthday, you could do anything you wanna do. What would you wanna do? And I said, I don't know. Maybe go to Marshall Field's and play with makeup. She said, that's it. Why don't you be a makeup artist?”
Getting fired from Estée Lauder was the best thing
“Because there was a lot of angst in the year or so before I left. And it's all in in my biography, so or in my memoir, so it's all out there. It was tough. I mean, Leonard wasn't as involved in when you know, in the company, and there was a new, you know, CEO and a new you know, a lot of new things were happening, and it was not a good time at all. And so, it was it was it was honestly really tough, and it's the best thing that ever happened to me getting fired, if you wanna know the truth.”
Confidence comes from feeling comfortable in your skin
“You know, I hope my legacy will be that I was there to help people feel good about themselves and teach people how to be confident because I've figured out the secret of confidence. All it is is feeling comfortable in your skin.”
