This is an installment of Startup Year One, a special series of interviews with startup founders on the major lessons they have learned in the immediate aftermath of their businesses’ first year of operation.
Kate Twist has spent her entire career in and around powerful consumer brands.
Twist moved to New York City after obtaining a degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2002, initially working in investment banking with consumer retail clients, including luxury brands such as Oscar de la Renta, BCBG, and Badgley Mischka.
After getting her MBA at Harvard in 2008, Twist joined Estée Lauder–owned Clinique to get more classic brand management training in a big corporation.
“Developing new skin care products and launching global campaigns let me indulge my fascination with skin care and spend hundreds of hours doing consumer research around the world to understand what people hoped their skin care products could do,” says Twist. It was at Clinique that she also had access to world-class dermatologists as well as research and development specialists who could explain active ingredients in a way Google could never match.
While Twist says she’s “far from an influencer,” she admits many people did ask what she would be working on at Clinique and what they should be using—all the time. “This later became part of the inspiration for Ever/Body in terms of demystifying a category [that] can be incredibly confusing,” Twist says.
By the time she decided to start Ever/Body, a boutique medical spa specializing in cosmetic dermatology services, in 2018, Twist says she knew how to connect with consumers and create a modern digital experience. “I saw how the next generation of powerhouse brands are being built around consumer health care. And I saw a need for the delivery of health care services to evolve to fit into our lives in a more modern way,” she explains.
Fortune recently spoke with Twist, also CEO of Ever/Body, to learn more about the startup’s first year in business, the lessons learned, the hurdles overcome, and plans for the next year.
The following interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Fortune: What inspired the launch of Ever/Body? What makes it stand apart from other cosmetic services and spas?
Twist: Ever/Body exists at the intersection of health care and beauty, acting as the refreshingly honest leader to educate consumers on the modern way to take care of your skin. It’s designed to be a more inviting and accessible experience for minimally invasive cosmetic dermatology treatments, like laser facials, Botox, fillers, and body contouring. We are democratizing a space that’s historically been opaque and confusing, as well as full of misinformation and false promises. We offer a curated collection of the safest, most effective, and affordable services for the most common skin and body concerns, and our clients enjoy personalized beauty regimens delivered by trusted medical professionals as part of a modern self-care routine. We believe in natural-looking, nonobvious results to help you look and feel like your best self.
You had already been planning to expand beyond your initial location before the pandemic, but how did the outbreak of COVID-19 alter those plans? And what was it like to bounce back and push forward with opening a second location during phase 3 of New York City’s economic reopening?
We were four days away from opening our new Flatiron location when we shut our corporate headquarters on March 9 due to an abundance of caution around COVID-19. At the time, we thought we’d be delayed two, maybe three weeks, though that eventually turned into a three-month closure. Many young companies suffered disproportionately in comparison to more established businesses during the New York State on Pause order, but at Ever/Body, we quickly rallied to leverage the inherent strengths of a startup: flexibility and resilience in the face of uncertainty.
With our stores closed, we pivoted to our digital expertise and in the span of two weeks launched a telemedicine practice followed quickly by the introduction of a best-in-class e-commerce experience. Both of these projects had been part of our original strategic plan, and our dedicated engineers, designers, store operators, and, of course, our amazing medical professionals pitched in to bring them to life while connecting virtually from living rooms, bedrooms, and even a well-appointed laundry closet converted to home offices. It felt like the very earliest days of launching the business: scrappy, full of enthusiasm, with a determination to make things happen.
Reopening Ever/Body was a highly celebrated event for the entire team—the product of weeks of meticulous planning around being able to do so safely for both our clients and staff.
Ensuring clients feel safe and comfortable as the pandemic continues is top of mind for every retail and services business. What precautions did you put in place at Ever/Body?
We spent weeks researching best practices and government guidelines for a safe reopening. Along with the standard precautions of industrial cleaning, social distancing, limiting occupancy, sourcing masks and face shields, checking temperatures, and locating an impressive stock of hand sanitizer, we again leaned into the Ever/Body team’s digital expertise to elevate our experience.
We completely redesigned our client check-in process so that it could be done at home for maximum safety, and we added mandatory safety questions related to COVID-19, such as recent travel history, possible exposure risk, and general health questions. We have had great feedback from our clients about the new interface, and when we’re safely in a post-COVID era the remote check-in will still be a time saver for anyone running a little behind for their appointment.
Obviously, amid the economic slump, consumers’ cosmetic and purchasing practices are going to change. How does Ever/Body plan to adjust its business plan for the immediate future?
Fortunately, it seems that the skin care industry overall has thrived during COVID as consumers focus less on color cosmetics and apparel and more on natural beauty and health and wellness. Skin care is an affordable luxury that simply makes people feel better about themselves.
Since our SoHo store reopened, we actually saw some of our busiest days ever, due in part to pent-up demand for services. Our clients tell us that a lot of time spent checking out their reflections on Zoom the last few months prompted them to book appointments. We predict this trend will continue as people ditch their time-consuming pre-COVID full makeup routines and opt for achieving their best natural skin. We also believe consumers recognize the value inherent in minimally invasive cosmetic dermatology; they can achieve significantly advanced results beyond what they would see with prestige cosmetic skin care products.
At the same time, how does a shutdown of this nature affect the future of the business, from services offered to raising capital?
Ever/Body was well positioned to weather the shutdown, and in many ways it strengthened our business as much as it was an unwelcome black swan event. We were fortunate to complete our Series A financing in the summer of 2019, almost concurrent with the opening of our first official Ever/Body location in SoHo. To date, we have raised $17 million from ACME Capital, Tiger Global Management, Redesign Health, and Declaration Capital as well as from the founders of digitally native brands we admired, like Rent the Runway, Warby Parker, Harry’s, and Allbirds, so we are well capitalized.
As the shutdowns started, we had already built a cohesive 15-person team at our Chelsea headquarters, including a robust internal engineering team, and a 20-plus–person team at our Ever/Body locations. We also had a year of operating history by the time we closed, including the months we’d spent operating a stealth concept in the Financial District, which became the precursor to Ever/Body. We’re clearly being more conservative now with our use of capital, but we’re confident that with our stores open we’ll be able to meet our goals and execute on our original plan. One silver lining is that we expect it to be easier to find attractive real estate opportunities for our future Ever/Body locations.
With encouraging initial results from the launch of telemedicine and e-commerce, the pandemic helped us lean in sooner to the digital aspects of the business which we knew would be part of Ever/Body’s competitive advantage. In particular, we found our virtual consultations allowed us to develop relationships with new clients who are still deciding which of these treatments are right for them and to strengthen our relationships with existing clients.
Looking beyond the post-pandemic era—which could be anywhere from a year to a few years from now—how do you plan to grow Ever/Body and what do you want the business to look like five years from now?
We launched Ever/Body with the intention of becoming a category-defining national brand that stands for trusted care, vetted technology, and wellness. Our number of physical locations will grow over the next five years as we expand outside New York, though we will see a much broader geographic reach via our digital platform. One thing the pandemic has shown us is the demand for telehealth services, and Ever/Body is uniquely positioned to grow within that vertical. The trust we build in person at our physical locations lends further credibility to our virtual offering, where clients can get a telemedicine skin care assessment by an expert medical professional with personalized regimen recommendations and skin care prescriptions sent directly to a pharmacy. We also are working on our own line of prescription products formulated for our clients’ most common skin care concerns.
No matter how large we grow, it’s my goal for Ever/Body to maintain the sense of warmth and inclusivity that makes all of our clients feel welcome, first-timers and veterans alike. We don’t believe in helping anyone look like a different person; we want everyone to feel like the best versions of themselves.
