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Nicole Gibbons is the founder and CEO
of Claire. She's also an accomplished interior

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designer whose expert opinion has been sought
by top media outlets like HGTV, Own,

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Good Morning America, The Rachel Ratio, El Decor, Better Homes and

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Gardens, and more. Her work
in the design world enabled her to identify

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the paint shopping experience was broken,
and she saw an opportunity to improve the

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process from start to finish. Nicole
founded Claire to create an easier, more

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inspiring way to shop for paint.
She is passionate about helping people create beautiful

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spaces they love coming home to every
day. Today we'll hear from Nicole,

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who walks us through her journey to
a milly, a million in sales,

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a million in revenue, a million
followers, or a million in funding to

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a mass. One million of anything
is a major feat, and that's why

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we're highlighting women who have done just
that. You'll hear from women who have

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made their marked, impacted lives,
blaze trails, and a masked a Millie.

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I'm the founder and CEO of Claire. We are a direct to consumer

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paint brand that is aiming to make
buying paint for your home or really easy

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and really inspiring. For anyone who's
ever bought paint at a big box store

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or a hardware store, it can
really cumbersome, time consuming, stressful process.

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And so we're just simplifying everything,
bringing everything to your door, and

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innovated around the sampling process with appealing
to fit color samples one step, no

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mass, you can seep back to
what the color looks like in your home,

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and then we've curated the best color. So we make it really really

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easy to find the perfect one.
And the journey to getting here involved many

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steps, and I really say that
every step in my career led me to

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this. When I was a kid, I actually thought I wanted to be

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a pediatrician and I love babies.
It was more about just like, you

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know, I don't know, I
love medicine. I love babies, and

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that's what I kind of thought I
wanted to do growing up. And then

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you know, you go through your
schooling and realize, um, you know,

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different paths. So I went to
college and I started taking an advanced

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science classes and I was like,
yeah, I'm not doing this for the

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next twelve years, no thanks.
And I had so many other interests.

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So I was really interested in fashion. I was really interested in the music

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industry, and so I started doing
internships. I interned at Interscope Records,

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I interned at peel To Skincare Company, I interned at a PR agency,

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And through those experiences, I got
a flavor for, um, you know

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what working in PR might be like. And that's the past that I took

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fresh out of college. So I
actually worked in PR for ten years,

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but um and now i'm I'm.
I went from PR to running an INTI

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design firm to now a new role
as a startup CEO. So a very

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far cry from my days of wanting
to be a doctor when I was a

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little girl. I didn't intentionally set
out to become a startup CEO, but

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I knew I wanted to build a
brand, and so when I was working

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in PR, I started exploring my
passion for design through blogging. So it

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was the early days of blogging,
before there were influencers and people even really

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monetized blogs. I started a decorating
blog and it was really just to create

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an outlet and talked about my love
for design with people who actually care,

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because my real friends didn't could care
to you know, they there or less

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about interior design, and so through
that creative channel, I was able to

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perform a passion for design or that
was all run who does an eight?

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So definitely not a good time to
be leaving my corporate job. But fast

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forward twenty thirteen, I left my
PR career to build an interior design firm

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and be an interior designer after five
years of five hustling and working on the

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blog, and so I set out
to build a business and make a name

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for myself as a designer. I
started focusing on trying to create opportunities in

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the media. I would be really
inspired by Martha Stewart. I also felt

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like there was no voice of decorating
for a younger generation of people. When

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you looked at all the personalities that
were an AGTP at the time and that

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you know had you know, relative
like no names or who are relative no

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names in the home space, there
were all of older people that didn't really

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speak to me. And so I
initially set out to try to become like,

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you know, a Martha Stewart esque
decorating, entertaining personality. And so

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I started doing lack of work in
media, so I would appear on morning

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shows pretty frequently. I booked a
role on a DIY decorating show on the

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Open Women Bring that work called Homemates
Simple Um. It was a show where

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we did one room makeovers for deserving
families. And all the while I was

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doing all of those things, I
was also working with private clients and pier

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designer, so ring many hats and
just kind of hustling and you know,

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on the PR circuit and just kind
of constantly being out there. And the

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further along I got in my design
career, the more and more I started

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to think about the kind of brands
that I wanted to build. And the

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typical path for an interior designer is
usually furniture. It's usually a licensing arrangement.

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So you know, the person whose
name is on the product isn't owning

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and operating the company. They're just
kind of, you know, putting their

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name on the products. You know, maybe having some creative input in the

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in the early process of you know, product development, and then taking a

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fee or percentage of sales. And
you know, that became less interesting to

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me. The landcape had change,
you know, the retail world was becoming

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more e commerce focused, and I
was really excited by what other young founders

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were doing in different industries across the
commerce and so like you know companies like

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Kasper or worried Park or birch Box. You know people who are pioneering new

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models for buying products, you know, creating easier ways to shop for something

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that we're really challenging, like glasses, like mattresses. And I started thinking

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about what I can do in the
home space. That was like that home

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is a pretty sleepy category behind the
scenes. You know, the companies that

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manufacture the furniture, the brands that
really dominate the home space across all categories,

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and are these really old companies that
probably aren't innovating as fast as the

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consumer landscape is shifting. And so
I thought that there would be an opportunity

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to do something really interesting and disruptive
in the home space. There weren't a

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lot of brands doing interesting things.
I think one King's Lane came along and

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really created something that felt really fresh, and I started thinking about what category

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I could happen to in home that
would be different. And so that meant

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not doing furniture, that meant not
doing betting or not doing something else that

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was equally as obvious. And I
had a full moment around paint. In

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twenty sixteen, I was helping a
forensic paint color and you know, I

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was trying to go to the paint
brand's website to show them the color.

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And I realized, this website is
a terrible experience. Why can't you,

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you know, easily see colors online? Why are there's so many colors?

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That I just started thinking about what
a better experience could look like. And

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that was really the origin of the
idea. And when the light bulb moment

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happened, and that was in twenty
sixteen, and so in that year,

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I was really busy in other areas
designment of my business, and so I

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didn't really focus on this idea and
really dedicate or commit myself to pursuing it

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until last year twenty seventeen, and
so I decided to scale back my design

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firm to explore what this could be. And early, you know, pretty

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much as soon as I made that
decision, things started to grow legs,

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and you know, I saw all
the potential and so fast forward, you

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know, built out of supply chain, went out to raise capital, started

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building a team executing on the business
and we just launched Joun July thirty first.

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It's been quite an exciting journey.
So what did it take to get

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to the actual launch? Nicole walks
us through what I'll call after the idea

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phase. So when it when it
was truly in the idea phase, like

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twenty sixteen, I just started looking
more closely at the competitive landscape. I

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started, um, you know,
diving a little bit into market research,

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but that was a big extent of
it. And then January twenty seventeen rolled

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around, and you know what happens
every new year. You start thinking about

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your goals and what you really want
to do with your life. And I

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felt like, while I had built
a really great design career, it wasn't

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very focused. You know. One
day I was working with clients, another

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day, I was doing something on
TV, another day I was doing a

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collaboration or some sort of project with
the brand, and I was constantly you

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know, on the grind, hustling, you know, wearing many and I

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felt like I had, you know, seventeen jobs, and so I wanted

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to I wanted to just really focus
my efforts on one thing. And so,

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you know, at the top of
the new year, I really started

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reflecting on what I was most passionate
and most excited about, and I came

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back to this idea for Claire.
And so, you know, early in

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that year, I had a lot
of projects that I wasn't that excited about

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in my other business, and so
it was actually quite easy to take a

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step back, which was a little
bit of a risk, and it was

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scary because I'm like, Okay,
I'm gonna pause from what's bringing in all

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of the revenue and focus on this
idea that I don't really know where it's

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going to go, but let me
just kind of see, right, And

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so I stopped taking on clients.
I started saying no to everything, and

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I just spent all my time and
energy, you know, working on trying

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to get this business going. And
so I started driving way deeper into the

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market dynamics. I started talking to
people in the paint industry and in the

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R and D space, and you
know, you know, having a couple

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of loose chests with some dcs that
I got connected with, and you know,

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all of those early conversations were really
positive and gave me a really big

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vote of confidence that I was doing
something that's really had the potential to materialize

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in the way that it had had
envisioned, and I spent a lot of

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time building out our supply chain.
I knew that I would need to raise

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capital, and so in order to
raise capital, you kind of have to

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have something right. You can't just
be like I have brilliant idea. There's

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a million brilliant ideas. So what
I really spent my energy on was building

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out the foundation of our of our
supply chain, and also building out the

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vision and marketing strategy for the brand. I come from the marketing background,

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having worked in PR for ten years, and so when you're launching a new

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company and you're doing something really disrupted, you ute to market strategy is really

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really important. So I just spent
a lot of time thinking about and planning

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sort of what that how I would
execute on this this brand vision that I

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had, and and how we would
go to market. And so by the

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time I went out to raise capital, I had a really solid plan for

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um how I would execute. I
had partners lined up to help with our

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manufacturing and other areas of our supply
chain and M and I had a really

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strong go to market strategy. So
UM, I think that helped, and

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UM, you know, I think
as a as a founder, UM,

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it's super important to have a big
vision, you know, when you're raising,

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particularly when you're raising free products.
If you've already the bootstrapped a company

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to a point where you have you
know, exciting early attraction, UM,

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you know, that's one thing,
because you've got real metrics to show,

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But when you don't have a product
yet, you've really got to have a

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strong vision. And so when you're
raising capital as early as I did,

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UM, you're really selling investors on
a vision and on the potential of what

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your business to be, because you
know, at that point there's nothing really

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tangible other than you know, maybe
you know, in my case, we

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we did some I did some mock
ups and you know, branding and things

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like that, but we had to
starting manufacturing any syst products. So it's

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really all about the vision. One
of the first conversations I had was someone

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in the R and D space and
the industry, and that person felt like

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the industry really needed this. Um. You know, their feedback was that

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they're they've worked in the pain industry
for years and even they hate shopping for

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page and so I was onto something
and so that was a really really big

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vote of confidence. And then I
also had a discussion with the VC.

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So I'm a member of an all
women's co working space called The Wing.

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Shout out to the Wing. I
love them. And when the Wing was

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in their early days, they would
do these office hours where they'd have someone

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cool and important come in and you
could sign up to talk to them and

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pick their brains. And so a
VC this loan sus in line m posted

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an office hour, so I had
twenty minutes with her to talk to her

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about whatever, you know, raising
capital, building a business. And so

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I just went and I said,
Hey, I have this idea, here's

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why I'm in the process, this
is my vision for how I want to

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build this company, this is my
background. What bosts do you have on

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how I should go about raising capital? And she gave me some really solid

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advice and was very encouraging, and
I didn't think she was sort of blowing

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smoke. I believe she was really
genuine and she felt like, um,

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you know, if I, if
I did a few things right and and

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you know, kind of took them
for advice, that I could have some

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success raising capital and those two conversations
happened ironically because her IF week in February,

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that was when I kind of knew, I'm like, okay, if

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I have at least one VC kind
of cosiding that this is an idea worth

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you know, kind of pursuing,
and someone you know in the painted industry

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who feels like the industry really needs
something like this, that was enough for

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me to say, Okay, I
think the risk is worth it and I'm

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just gonna kind of go all in. So pretty much from February of twenty

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seventeen, UM, I've been all
in on Building Claire. And you know,

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it was tough, not without a
lot of sacrifice. I went from

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you know, doing really well to
being like, you know, living off

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savings and you know, that's a
very scary thing when everything's going out and

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coming in. So um, you
know, but it was all worth it.

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And um, and I'm super excited
about where the business is today.

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We launched less than two months ago, and um, you know, it's

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a really exciting time. So and
it's only the beginning piece of advice that

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I've heard pretty much my whole life
from many people over the years, that

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I think still holds holds true,
and it's probably the best advice is to

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trust your gut. Um. I
think you know, no one knows,

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no one has better instincts than you
do, and so um, you know,

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oftentimes your your logic might tell you
to go against your instincts, and

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in many cases it turns out to
be the wrong the wrong move. And

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I think trusting your instincts ties in
very closely with you know, sticking with

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your vision. If you know you're
on the right path, or you know

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that you're doing something the right way, no matter what anyone tells you,

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don't labor that comes you know that. I think it holds true in hiring.

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Building a team is really hard,
and I think oft in your gut

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u usually leads you in a direction
to know that someone's the right fit.

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And and you know, I think
many facets of running a business. I

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think some of the best leaders trust
their gut. And it particularly in an

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early stage startup. You don't have
a lot of data, right, There's

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a lot of ambiguity, and so
you've got to make decisions based on very

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few data points, and so that's
when your instincts kick into kind of know

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what's the right path and so you
know, it's probably a little cliche,

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but I definitely think trusting your gut
is the best advice. So I would

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say if there's one area of the
business that I probably enjoy the least,

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and it just comes with the parator
worry, so you know, I you

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know, it's it's not something that
I can't do, but probably the finance,

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bookkeeping, accounting pieces of the business. I'm a creative by nature,

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so that is sort of not what
I've always been the most comfortable with.

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And you know, we have a
little bit of outsourced support, but at

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this stage in the company, a
lot of that responsibility rest on my shoulders,

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and so I think that would be
one area as a business that I'd

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be happy to give up. I
think one of the important things about being

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a good leader is knowing what you're
really good at and what you're not so

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great at, um, And so
I think that's something where thatscenaria of the

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business where um, you know,
I'm really looking forward to bringing in someone

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who knows far more than me and
is a much better expert at you know,

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in finance, and I think just
particularly the bookkeeping piece, it's it's

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a little too in the leeds,
you know, and you know, as

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a company, you've got a lot
of people to pay, a lot of

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vendors to manage, and you know, um for particularly that piece of it,

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it gets really tedious people wanting to
follow up on their invoices and all

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that kind of stuff, and when
you don't really have a finance department in

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a payable department to manage those inquiries, it just starts to a little too

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in the week, I rather spent
my time on the vision in the big

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picture of the business. But you
know, we're hopefully that's going to change

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really soon. I've managed people in
my career and teams, and I've had

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people work for me, but it's
a totally different level of ownership and accountability

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when it's your company. And so
what that means is constantly working on developing

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yourself. Everybody has deficiencies, no
matter how smart you are or capable you

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are, and so really just trying
to improve in the areas where you know,

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I have the biggest opportunity to learn
and grow. I think being a

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strong leader is super important to growing
and developing a strong team. I think

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my company would be nothing without talents
in the effort of everyone who works here,

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and so keeping them motivated, helping
them grow, helping them cultivate their

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careers is really really important, and
just being a good example for them,

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but also creating values that sort of
guide the way everybody thinks. I like

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to think of like our company values
that clear as our operating system. You

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know, it's like the software that
helps the computer run smoothly. We have

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a set of core values and guiding
principles that you know, everybody embodies.

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And I think one of the kind
of kool aid sounding things that you always

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hear people talk about when they talk
about startups with culture and creating culture and

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hiring for culture fit and things like
that. But it's really really important.

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If you have people that are not
aligned with your values, it's just not

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going to be a good outcome.
And so, you know, being able

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to get a team of really smart, talented people on board with your company

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vision and your core values and working
together really collaboratively takes a lot of time

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and energy. And so I spent
a lot of time on people development.

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I spent a lot of time giving
feedback and you know, and I really

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take my role as a leader very
seriously. So when I was thinking about

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how to build a team, I
really thought about you know, and as

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an early company, you've got to
operate really leans. So I thought about,

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Okay, what are the absolute must
have roles that if I need to

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fill, and what are some of
those secondary things that, like, you

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know, if I hired someone whose
primary job function as X, they could

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also do why right, And so
I really had kind of four key roles

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that I wanted to fill and it
wasn't necessarily critical that I go that I

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went about hiring or looking for those
people in any particular order. It was

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really just about finding the right fit
for each role. And so m another

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really challenging thing with HI for us
is that you know, I was operating

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this company in spellf mode, meaning
we were operating a secrecy No one knew

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what I was working on. We
didn't have a website, you know,

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you couldn't Google us, And that
makes recruiting really, really hard because if

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you have no Internet presence, it's
hard for people to really validate that your

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real company and really like to believe
in what you're telling them. So when

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you're recruiting for a company like mine
at the stage that we were at,

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Um, it's a lot of tapping
into your personal network and getting intros.

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And I mentioned The Wing earlier,
which is such an incredible community and co

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working space for women. And my
first employee is someone who I happened to

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meet at the Wing. Uh,
you know, it's digital marketing role,

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and um, you know, I
was trying to, prior to my fundraise,

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start thinking about like what is online
app was just customer acquisition costing these

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days and getting something nice on how
to go about, you know, thinking

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about our digital marketing strategy. And
so I've i you know, we had

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coffee, and she had really smart
ideas and seemed really open and engaging and

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seemed to embody all of the characteristics
of someone i'd want to work with.

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And so she actually ended up being
one of the first people I reached out

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to when I was looking to hire
and and so that's how I found my

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first employee. And I think,
you know, when you're really really early,

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it's a lot of like personal networks
and referrals and and also a lot

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of cold outreach on LinkedIn and stuff
like that. But yeah, recruiting is

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also one of the things that can
be really time consuming, and you know,

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you've spent a lot of time,
would you grow If you're a fast

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growing company that's got to hire a
lot of people really quickly, you end

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up spending a lot of time with
recruiting. So but I think the best

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advice I could give someone who is
looking to raise capital and who might look

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at what I've accomplished as a benchmark, Number one, I would say,

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it's really difficult to compare your trajectory
to someone else's. The best thing that

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you could possibly do is just stick
with your visions, tele agrate story.

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You know, there's a book called
Grit. It was written by this woman,

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Angela Duckworth, and one of the
one of the things that she talks

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about is that, you know,
they do all these studies and they look

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at, you know, people who
have the best pedigree on paper, you

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know, and then people who may
not have that same pedigree and kind of

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measuring success. And what's really the
biggest determining factor of success is not where

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they went to school or any of
that on paper stuff. It's how much

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grit they have to keep going and
keep keep at their vision and their grit.

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And so I think, just maintain
your grit. I think that's something

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that I have. If you,
you know, you ask me sort of

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what my superpower is, I think
that I'd never give up, you know.

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I I'm really confident. And I
think when you're going out to ask

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people for lots and lots of money, got to be really confident in what

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you're talking about. But also if
you are particularly a woman of color,

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you know, because you talk about
sort of the statistic that you know,

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and then the fact that, like
the VC industry doesn't necessarily favor women of

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color. But if you look at
the overall landscape, there's you know,

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tens of billions of dollars that are
invested in new companies every year by venture

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capitalists. And so if you,
UM, if you look at yourself as

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an outlier and don't fall don't think
about yourself in that same bucket as the

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you know, two tenths of one
percent. Think about yourself as this founder

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that's got this amazing vision, an
amazing company, UM, and stick with

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that and don't let anything else better
you or UM or or UM you know,

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sort of diminish your confidence. I
think the best thing that you can

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do is stick with your vision,
tell a great story, UM, and

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keep going keep pushing through all the
nose. I know founders um whom who

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went out to raise capital and we're
told no hundreds of times before they got

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the yes. I was actually just
chatting yesterday was the chief marketing officer of

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Peloton, and then I hope I'm
not butchering the story, but she was

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saying, and Peloton is now a
four billion dollar company. And when their

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founder first had the vision to build
this company, he went out and pitched.

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I think it was something literally like
a thousand investors that all said no.

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And he kept at it and kept
at it. And you'd imagine that

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even after the first twenty the average
person would probably have their confidence knocked down

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a little bit. Like he kept
at it, and like, you know,

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he's definitely got the last last because
he's built an incredible business. And

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you know, Peloton has like a
thick valuation. There's the hottest startup.

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Everybody's dying to know if they're going
to go public and win and whatever.

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And and I think it's a great
example of of of grit and canacity and

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just making sure that you never never
waiver no matter what happens. Sometimes hecticness

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of being a CEO and founder can
actually get in the way and hinder your

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day to day productivity. Nicole is
going to share with us some of her

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favorite productivity hacks. So I am
big into efficiency and productivity hacks. I'm

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00:25:15.799 --> 00:25:19.559
a big fan of Embarrassed and you
know other people who are known for,

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you know, kind of like their
expert advice on how to get more done

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and how to be more productive.
I can't say that I'm the best at

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it. I probably fail every day
at accomplishing something that I intended to do

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00:25:32.960 --> 00:25:36.799
that day. You know, there's
just never enough hours in the day.

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You know a few things that I
do to try to sting really focused is

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you know, as much as I
can, I try to meditate. My

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days are crazy. I'm pulled in
many different directions. I am context switching

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quite often, and you know,
when you have a very very busy mind,

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it's hard to ever find those moments
to be still, and so meditation

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really helps you master the art of
creating those still moments wherever you are,

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so when things do get hectic and
crazy, you can kind of resentsor and

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find your focus. So that's been
really helpful, and that's one of those

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things that you know, it's not
easy for me to do every day.

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I used to try to do the
whole Headspace app twenty minutes a day,

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which sometimes I still do. But
then I found this other app called Simple

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Habit, and it's literally like five
minute meditations, and some of them are

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even shorter. So even if you
just get that in, it's really really

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awesome. I try to do something
every morning that makes me feel accomplished.

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So whether it's making breakfast or making
my bed, it's one of those small

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little things that you can do,
but it gives you a sense of having

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checked something off the list right at
the top of the day, and you

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know, subconsciously kind of motivates you
to just kind of keep going and just

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give you momentum as you start your
day. Another thing, too, is

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I try to time block if I
have to do certain tasks, like maybe

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it's get through emails or you know, give feedback on just to you know,

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on something that my team member has
sent me to review. I try

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to literally schedule in blocks of times
to get those things done because sometimes it's

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the only way I can actually get
to it is if I put it on

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my calendar. I literally put lunch
time on my calendar because if I don't,

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some days, I will forget to
eat lunch. So I think keeping

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a calendar and being really diligent about
managing your time, I think it is

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also super important for maintaining productivity.
For me, I think success is just

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being happy with myself wherever I am
and with whatever I'm doing. I can

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00:27:47.160 --> 00:27:52.079
accomplish things that you know, most
people could only dream of, but if

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I'm not happy doing those things,
it's not a success. And so my

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goal is to love coming to work
every day. I don't ever want to

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feel burned out. I don't ever
want to resent uh you know, and

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anything about my my my job or
my career. Um. I think when

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it comes to um, family and
my personal relationships, I think having those

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relationships be healthy, UM and happy
is also what makes me feel really accomplished

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and successful, because when we're running
a big company, having a support system

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is really really important. UM.
Yeah, I think it's just it's my

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my measure of success is not tied
to anyone accomplishment. It's more tied than

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00:28:36.119 --> 00:28:42.200
my own personal sense of contentment,
UM and happiness. And and that's really

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how I how I look at the
idea of success and how I define it.

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I'm a Yana Angel and thank you
for listening to Emilie produced by Maizie

399
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:56.519
Media. If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe to the podcast so

400
00:28:56.640 --> 00:29:00.920
you never miss an episode. Because
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401
00:29:00.960 --> 00:29:06.519
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402
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