Sasha Plavsic, Founder of ILIA Beauty, the clean cosmetics brand known for redefining performance makeup, opens up about what it took to build a $100M business from a garage and a $25,000 line of credit.
In this raw and vulnerable conversation, Sasha shares how a deeply personal quest to heal her skin led to the creation of ILIA, a brand that went on to help define the "clean beauty" category alongside industry giants like Sephora. But behind the brand’s success story lies an untold reality of burnout, identity loss, and a literal health collapse that forced her to reckon with the cost of carrying it all.
From almost closing ILIA’s doors to hiring a CEO and eventually selling a majority stake to the Courtin-Clarins family, Sasha walks us through the most defining and difficult moments of her journey.
Whether you’re bootstrapping your first venture or navigating scale, Sasha’s story is a powerful reminder that success should never come at the cost of your health or your joy.
Key Takeaways and Topics:
How Sasha built ILIA Beauty from a garage with no outside funding for the first 7 years
The personal skin struggles that led her to question conventional beauty products
Why she rejected the “all natural” label and pioneered a hybrid formulation model
Early setbacks, including being told labs couldn’t make the products she envisioned
The pivotal moment she considered shutting ILIA down—and what saved it
The decision to hire a CEO and why it was the best move for the brand and her health
How ILIA scaled from $5M to $100M, eventually catching the eye of the Courtin-Clarins family
The physical collapse that forced Sasha to finally slow down—her kidneys started shutting down
How hustle culture and perfectionism nearly cost her life, and what she’s doing differently now
The guilt and double standards faced by working mothers and women founders
How Sasha protects her energy today: boundaries, executive coaching, and saying “no”
Her advice to founders: trust your gut, delegate what drains you, and stop trying to do it all
The Failure Factor Podcast was brought to you by Off The Field Coaching. Explore working with one of our coaches at http://offthefieldcoaching.com
Hosted by Megan Bruneau: therapist, executive coach, speaker, Forbes contributor, and host of The Failure Factor. For more info, visit https://meganbruneau.com
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Themes: entrepreneurship, clean beauty, burnout, founder health, motherhood, bootstrapping, female founders, exit strategy, scaling a startup, sustainable success, executive coaching, mental health, delegating, work-life balance, hustle culture, investor-free growth, ILIA Beauty, women in leadership, resilience, skin care innovation, founder vulnerability