Raisa Mirza

While beauty products may seem like a necessity for some, they’re a luxury for many others. Everyone deserves to feel beautiful and empowered, and a tube of lipstick can do just that. 

Raisa Mirza created rella beauty, a company whose buy-one-give-one model is providing lipsticks to women in need. 

Read on to learn more about Raisa, her business, and her working style.

Hustle Amsterdam (HA): Where are you from? And what brings you to Amsterdam? 

Raisa Mirza (RM): I’m originally from San Francisco. My husband and I moved to Amsterdam two years ago for his job. 

HA: Tell me about your business? What is your mission? 

RM: rella beauty is the buy-one-give-one model of beauty where for every unit purchased, we give one to a woman in need via our non-profit giving partners. 

Our mission is to bring the feelings of empowerment, self-care, and confidence that so many of us feel as a result of our beauty regimens to women who don’t have access to the same things we do. We aim to do this via the small luxury of lipstick that can in fact be so impactful. While rella beauty is my main focus, and the premise for this interview — I also want to share something I started this week. 

My husband and I created something called the Do More Collective where our mission is to connect black and minority brands with skilled, experienced professionals who can help them in different areas. I’ve been quite vocal about the situation at hand and had been thinking about how I can affect change, tangibly, to the best of my ability. It is completely free. 

Small brands and businesses alongside individual creators and professionals make our world a better place to live in. These are the people who bring our communities alive and are dedicated to making them thrive. There are small brands who are incredible and undiscovered just like there are professionals who are truly built for leadership but are fighting to make a path for themselves.

There is a glaring need to uplift and amplify the voices of people of color (POC), across the board. There’s also a huge number of us who are dying to do more in the fight for social equality and justice.

HA: How are you handling our new “normal” due to the coronavirus outbreak? What impact has it had on your business? How has the transition to working remotely been for you? Are you being strict with a routine or taking it day-by-day?

RM: The new normal has definitely been an adjustment. I’m someone who is used to working remotely when it comes to rella beauty and freelance projects. However, part of my remote working usually involves changing up my scenery, working from co-working spaces or cafes. Not having this has been interesting to say the least. I miss the interactions that come from being in these spaces. Oftentimes, I would find myself in conversation with fellow creatives or entrepreneurs which is inspiring. 

In terms of business, sales have slowed, which is expected. Now, it’s really a battle of breaking through the noise online as I try to carve out a small sliver of space for rella beauty. At this time, we would have been in the brand building stage regardless. Now, I find myself trying to build awareness in a time where there is so much happening online, because everyone is online more than ever. 

I have quite a routine at the moment. Last month, Ramadan helped me stick to a routine — including time for prayer and meditation, followed by a workout, and then I dug into all things rella beauty.  

HA: Why rella beauty? What brought you to the beauty industry?

RM: I’ve spent quite a few years working in PR and marketing and in the last five years, much of the work has been focused on beauty. I love the industry personally and professionally! 

While being in the thick of it, I was on a trip to India visiting family where I met a young girl who really inspired me. Our family with whom we were staying hired the young girl and her mother to clean their home every day. I was getting ready one day and noticed her watching me while I was doing my hair. I offered to do her hair and she shyly declined. I felt like she really wanted to and this interaction stuck with me. I immediately knew I wanted to somehow bridge the gap between the little luxury of beauty with people who don’t normally have access to the same things we do. After going to and from the drawing board, I landed on the buy-one-give-one idea.

HA: What is the current state of rella beauty? Do you have six and 12-month goals for your business? 

RM: As it stands, we are definitely seeing a slow down in sales that I’m focused on remedying. We do have six and 12-month goals in terms of sales and customer acquisition that I’m in the process of reevaluating given the current circumstances. Things shifted so drastically and now we’re adjusting. 

HA: What kind of obstacles do you face in your company? How do you handle them?

RM: Given I’m a one-woman show right now, there are plenty of obstacles! For one, I definitely don’t feel like there are enough hours in the day. I constantly feel like I have so many ideas and things I want to do, campaigns, and marketing initiatives I want to initiate, but as one person, there is only so much I can do. 

Thankfully, my husband is an expert marketer and is incredibly tech-savvy, so he has been able to help me with certain things like building the site and creating my email program. 

HA: What has been your most successful moment so far? And how do you celebrate your wins? 

RM: In a short six months of being live, rella beauty has built a following on Instagram which I’m proud of. It seems small, but there was a time where even having 1,000 followers seemed like a longshot. In the same light, we’ve seen some great PR (Byrdie, Vogue India, and Hypebae) also in a short period of time. 

I suppose I celebrate my wins by sharing them with my online community. And then, I do a little victory dance at home, of course! 

Another small but meaningful victory in my book is launching Do More Collective within hours. The idea came to me, my husband and I had a conversation about it and bam! I was writing copy, he was making a site, and it was up, Instagram in tandem within a few hours. I suppose this one is more of a personal success — I remember getting in bed that night and telling him, “I’m proud of us!”

HA: How have you accomplished what you have? Did you go to business school? Did you wing it? Fake it till you make it? Get really lucky? 

RM: Ha! It’s a combo of education, experience, and risk-taking. Starting my own business was definitely a risk. Though I didn’t go to business school, a combo of my work experience and personal interest in beauty and consumer goods have definitely helped me along this path. The time I’ve spent doing all things public relations and marketing continue to help me build rella beauty. 

HA: Did you fundraise for your business?

RM: We fundraised via Kickstarter pre-launch. Our goal wasn’t super high the amount funded amounted to about 13% of the costs to get things up and running. Launching the Kickstarter campaign was nerve wracking, but I was incredibly blown away by the generosity of people in my network who were quick to donate and send me notes of support and encouragement. We hit our goal within two weeks. 

“If it was easy, everyone would do it.”

HA: Do you have a favorite motivational quote? 

RM: It’s not necessarily my “favorite” but in the midst of feeling really down and stressed about business the past few weeks, I heard someone say this in a webinar I was listening to: “If it was easy, everyone would do it.” It was a good reminder that I needed to hear. It made me realize what I’m feeling is normal and it’s OK if I’m not seeing “success” the way I had defined it in my head. 

HA: What 3 tips would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs? What do you wish you had known before you started? 

RM: Be Relentless. Be Patient. Get out of your head (when you’re self-doubting). These are the tips I still tell myself every day! 

HA: How would you describe your working style? 

RM: I’m the type of person where when I’m in a flow, it’s hard to break — I ignore phone calls and texts, I don’t get up for snacks — I just keep going. There have been nights where I find myself looking at the time and it’s 3 A.M. because I’ve been in a good workflow. 

On the flip side, I can also be the person who gets easily distracted. So my best work happens when I ignore all distractions, I’m well-fed and I just enter a zone. 

I have loads of various lists to keep me organized — specific to PR outreach, product, social media, etc. Every bucket of the job has a different list of action items with due dates that I set for myself. 

HA: When you’re not working on rella beauty — where can we find you? 

RM: Enjoying a little cappuccino in the sun! Last month I was fasting because of Ramadan, so food and coffee were definitely on my mind. You could also find me in a studio gym class (if they were open). At the moment, you’ll find me sitting outside since the weather is warming up. I’m always keen to try new restaurants. Food is definitely a hobby, so once restaurants open up, I’ll be doing that. 

HA: How do you find work-life balance while being an entrepreneur? 

RM: So far, it’s been good. It’s interesting because since being in quarantine, I find myself working way more. Without any plans or obligations and with extra time at home, I end up getting online to do a thing or two and find myself working for five hours. 

I am a huge proponent of making sure I turn off work and focus on myself, my marriage, etc. I take the time to work out every day and to chat with friends and family about non-work-related things. I enjoy having the freedom as an entrepreneur to make my own schedule whether it comes to traveling or simple things like being able to cook at home because I can schedule it in. 

HA: What is your passion? 

RM: At this point in my life, my passions are my family, friends, religion, and rella beauty. These are truly the things that fuel me on a day-to-day basis. These are things that energize me, make me happy, and keep me up at night all at the same time. I suppose real passions do exactly that! They bring you happiness and joy but can also be the cause of anxious feelings.

HA: What inspires you most about Amsterdam? Do you have any favorite spots to work or hangout? 

RM: Amsterdam is incredible. I’ve been here almost two years, and I am still enchanted when I go out and bike past canals and cherry blossom trees. I slow down when I ride past Museumplein just because it’s so beautiful. 

I appreciate that people here truly have an appreciation for life; they don’t let work rule their time. It was so new to me to see people get to work around 9, take a full 30 minutes for lunch AWAY from their desk, and leave work by 5:30. 

Places I love to hang out and work: Soho House, Scandinavian Embassy, Local Hero, the SPACES building (so much sunlight and open space!). I love any places where I can sit outside and work. Also, Bocca Coffee and Stacked T’s (another great place with sunlight!)

Connect with Raisa on LinkedIn here and follow her on Instagram @rdotmirza.

Connect with rella beauty on LinkedIn here, follow them on Instagram @rellabeautyofficial, give them a like on Facebook here, and follow them on Twitter here.