Fifteenish

The Jamie Kern Lima Story | IT Cosmetics

Before I get into Jamie's story, I share something persona... a season in my life I don't talk about much. A relationship that slowly took everything from me, and the moment someone laughed in my face when I said I wanted to get into real estate. I left. Got my license. Became rookie of the year. And I think about that laugh every time I come across a founder who had their own version of it. Jamie Kern Lima is the co-founder of IT Cosmetics, the brand she started in her living room, built into the number one prestige cosmetics brand in America, and sold to L'Oréal for $1.2 billion. She became the first female CEO in L'Oréal's 108-year history. But this episode isn't about the billion dollars. It's about a rental car in a parking lot outside Philadelphia, a woman with under a thousand dollars to her name, and a decision she made before she ever walked through that door. A male investor told her nobody would buy makeup from someone who looked like her. QVC said no for two years. Sephora said no for six. And when she finally got her shot, ten minutes on live television, she wiped her makeup off on camera and showed the world exactly who she was. Everything sold out before the segment ended. This one is about what it means to stop covering up the thing you think disqualifies you and let it be the very thing that builds everything. Sources & Disclaimer * Jamie Kern Lima — Believe IT: How to Go from Underestimated to Unstoppable (Harper Collins, 2021) * Jamie Kern Lima — Worthy: How to Believe You Are Enough and Transform Your Life (2024) * Columbia Business School — The IT Factor (August 2025) * Boca Raton Observer — Making It Big (August 2021) * Foundr — Jamie Kern Lima Used 10 Minutes to Create a Billion-Dollar Business * CNBC — IT Cosmetics Jamie Kern Lima: I Lived Completely Burnt Out for Almost a Decade (March 2021) * Femfounded — IT Cosmetics: Rejected Everywhere, Sold for $1.2B * Wikipedia — Jamie Kern Lima entry All facts shared in this episode are based on information available at the time of recording. Any personal reflections, interpretations, or opinions are my own. If anything is found to be inaccurate, I'm happy to issue a correction.

The Cassey Ho Story | POPFLEX & Blogilates

What do you do when the person who loves you most tells you that your dream is a path to failure? Today's episode is about exactly that moment — and what gets built on the other side of it. Cassey Ho is the founder of POPFLEX and Blogilates — two eight-figure activewear brands with over twenty million followers and a presence in every Target in America. Her parents immigrated from Vietnam, rebuilt their lives from nothing, and had one ask of their daughter: be a doctor or a lawyer. At sixteen, Cassey told her dad she wanted to be a fashion designer. He told her she would fail, make no money, and have no friends. She built anyway. In this episode I talk about what it actually cost her along the way — the body image struggles she's been honest about publicly, the years of online hate that nearly broke her, the moment she almost quit everything, and why she was genuinely afraid to put her own face on her own packaging at Target. I also talk about what it means to be the first — the first Asian fitness instructor on Target shelves — and why that matters beyond the business. This one goes deep. I think you need to hear it. Sources & Disclaimer * Fortune — Popflex Founder Had 3 Choices Before Building Her Fashion Empire (September 2024) * South China Morning Post — Meet Blogilates YouTuber and Taylor Swift Favourite Cassey Ho (2024) * We Are Resonate — Asian American Fitness YouTuber Cassey Ho Discusses Her Parents' Immigrant Story (October 2019) * Wikipedia — Cassey Ho entry * Grokipedia — Cassey Ho entry * Morning Honey — Fitness Instructor Cassey Ho Encourages Others To Use Your Story (2021) * YouTube — How I Built 8-Figure Businesses by Defying My Parents | Cassey Ho | Secrets to Success (September 2024) * Cassey Ho's personal blog — blogilates.com All facts shared in this episode are based on information available at the time of recording. Any personal reflections, interpretations, or opinions are my own. If anything is found to be inaccurate, I'm happy to issue a correction.

The Dorothy Henke Story | Dot's Pretzels

There's a pressure that's always there — a little voice that says move faster, do more, scale quicker. I feel it too. And I think a lot of us do. So this episode is for anyone who's in a season of trying to find their rhythm and wondering if the pace they're moving at is enough. Dorothy Henke is the founder of Dot's Homestyle Pretzels — those buttery, garlicky, impossible-to-stop-eating seasoned pretzels you've definitely had at least once. She grew up on a dairy farm in North Dakota, built a thirty-year career in finance, and was heading into retirement when a bowl of Chex mix at a wedding changed everything. She started making pretzels in a borrowed kitchen in a town of a thousand people, grew the business entirely at her own pace without a single outside investor, and sold to Hershey in 2021 for $1.2 billion. She was in her late sixties. She hand-bagged every bag by hand for two and a half years because she didn't know where it was going. She didn't want to go in the hole. And she just kept showing up. This one hit differently for me. I think it will for you too. Sources & Disclaimer * Mpls.St.Paul Magazine — The Origins of Dot's Homestyle Pretzels (March 2020) * InForum — A Seasoned Entrepreneur, Dot Henke Named The Forum's 2021 Area Person of the Year * InForum — Why There's No Stop in North Dakota's Pretzel Queen Dot Henke * KX News — Someone You Should Know: Dorothy 'Dot' Henke, Creator of Dot's Pretzels (June 2021) * Grand Forks Herald — Dot of Dot's Pretzels Shares Snack-Tastic Success Story * Bismarck Tribune — Dot of Dot's Homestyle Pretzels Shares Success Story * Rural Gold Podcast — Dot's Pretzels: Dot Henke the Accidental Entrepreneur (October 2021) * 1 Million Cups Fargo — Dorothy and Randy Henke Entrepreneurial Journey (October 2019) All facts shared in this episode are based on information available at the time of recording. Any personal reflections, interpretations, or opinions are my own. If anything is found to be inaccurate, I'm happy to issue a correction.

The Jen Rubio Story | Away

Jen Rubio was born in the Philippines and moved to New Jersey at seven years old. She arrived in a classroom where she didn't look like anyone around her, got placed in ESL classes, and spent years hiding her accent, her food, her whole self — just trying to belong. In this episode of Fifteenish, I'm not talking about the suitcase or the billion dollar valuation. I'm talking about that classroom. And what it costs a person to flatten themselves to fit a room that wasn't built for them — and what gets built when they finally stop. Jen went on to co-found Away, grow it to a $1.4 billion valuation, and step in as CEO for the first time ever — eight months pregnant — when the company needed someone who actually believed in what it was supposed to be. This one is about visibility, belonging, and what becomes possible when someone finally goes first. Sources & Disclaimer * Wikipedia — Jen Rubio entry * CNN Money — The Founders of Away Changed the Luggage Industry After a Travel Mishap (October 2017) * Asian Journal News — Meet the Filipina Who Turned a Suitcase Filled With Dreams Into a Billion-Dollar Reality (October 2025) * Grokipedia — Jen Rubio entry * Forbes — Jen Rubio interviews and features * Blank Brand — Women to Watch Vol 1: Jen Rubio's Community-First Brand Strategy (September 2025) * Medium / The Founder Stories — Meet Jen Rubio, Who Created the Perfect Suitcase at Away  All facts shared in this episode are based on information available at the time of recording. Any personal reflections, interpretations, or opinions are my own. If anything is found to be inaccurate, I'm happy to issue a correction.

The Jen Atkin Story | OUAI

Jen Atkin grew up in a conservative Mormon community in Utah, adopted at birth, with one tiny salon in her town and a dream that had nowhere to go. At nineteen she moved to Los Angeles with $300, spent a year calling salons with no callbacks, and took a receptionist job on Beverly Boulevard just to get in the door. In this episode of Fifteenish, I talk about how she worked her way from answering phones to styling Madonna's world tour, built one of the most recognizable careers in beauty alongside the Kardashians, and then did something nobody expected — she started over. In 2016 she launched OUAI, a haircare brand built around the simple idea that women deserved products made by someone who actually understood their lives. It sold to Procter and Gamble in 2022 for nine figures. And it all started because a rock star asked what she wanted and she already knew.