Bluemercury: Marla and Barry Beck

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2022

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The story of Bluemercury is packed with business lessons—for starters, it’s always good to have a backup plan. That’s what Marla and Barry Beck discovered in 1999, when they realized their startup online cosmetics business was going nowhere fast. They begged the bank for a second loan so they could invest in a brick-and-mortar store in Washington, D.C., and Bluemercury was born. More lessons followed: as they grew, they distinguished themselves by offering high-end brands and personalized service, and by locating stores in fashionable urban neighborhoods, not malls. Today, Bluemercury is owned by Macy’s, with nearly 200 locations across the U.S. And Barry and Marla—who got married somewhere around the launch of store 4—raised three children along the way.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	What is actually going on with the economy nowadays?
0:04.4	The price of gas, inflation?
0:06.5	Are we in a recession?
0:08.2	I'm Jeff Quo, co-host of NPR's Planet Money.
0:11.2	Come along with our super team of econ experts
0:14.1	as we delve into the stories that show you
0:16.2	how the world really works.
0:18.6	That's Planet Money from NPR.
0:23.7	Very, and I were in trouble.
0:25.2	We had to figure out what our move was
0:28.8	because there's no question we were going to run out of money.
0:31.7	When you're down to your last $150,000 in the bank,
0:35.3	it's hard, but you have to make some tough calls.
0:38.4	And we had to pivot, but we joked it back then.
0:42.6	The word pivot didn't exist straight as a strategy
0:46.2	for entrepreneurial companies.
0:47.5	It was literally, you're about to go bankrupt.
0:50.1	What do you do?
0:51.1	Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs,
1:02.2	idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
1:06.2	I'm Guy Raus, and on the show today,
1:10.9	how Marla and Barry Beck launched an online cosmetics company
	...

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