Introduction
Discover how Jessica Hatzis transformed a simple coffee scrub idea into a $100 million skincare empire. In this revealing interview, Jessica shares the journey of building Frank Body from scratch with just $10,000, creating a viral brand phenomenon on Instagram, and evolving into a global beauty powerhouse. Learn the exact strategies, challenges, and decisions that fueled their remarkable growth in the competitive beauty industry.
Founder Success Story QnA
How did you get your job? How did you find yourself doing the work you’re doing today? Tell us the Frank story.
It’s a two-part story. Before Frank body there was Willow and Blake, which is a creative and branding agency that we launched in 2010. I’m a copywriter by trade and I’d been working in-house at a music agency at the time underneath two founders. I just loved watching what their day-to-day looked like and I was really inspired by that. I had that moment where I thought I don’t want to work for you anymore, even though I love you, I want to be you. I quit my job and started a company with my best friend. We grew that really slowly into a full-service branding agency. After a couple of years of working with clients, they were coming to us because we had a pretty youthful and irreverent and refreshing voice, but we were finding that they’d come to us for that and they were really scared of these bold ideas that we were putting in front of them. We thought well what if we built a case study that was just us owning something from beginning to end. We came at it from the creative side and then we had a couple of other co-founders at the time who were really interested in e-commerce and product and the scalability of that versus something that was so dependent on our time like an agency model.
You guys kind of went viral on Instagram with the “Frank effect.” Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
It came from our experience at Willow and Blake. We were finding that there was this really strong emerging platform that people, the uptake on Instagram was huge but brands weren’t playing there. They were still sort of stuck in Facebook and other traditional marketing methods. There was an entirely untapped audience here waiting for people to come in and do something interesting. But if we’re going to come in as a brand on a platform that at the time was dominated by peer-to-peer communication, we can’t have this corporate tone of voice. We need to blend in essentially and sort of go into like incognito mode and make people feel like we were their friend and we weren’t necessarily trying to sell them something. We knew the power of word of mouth so we came up with this concept of Frank the character and he would just be able to allow us to talk in first person to people so then we didn’t have that corporate language that would be dominating our posts. We sent product out to anyone and everyone that would take it because we just wanted to create what is now called user-generated content but at the time we were just like we just need friends and we need people taking photos. We need everybody talking about this to kind of build that groundswell.
Is the coffee scrub still a strong product for you guys and does it still work just sending product to influencers?
The original coffee scrub isn’t as much a focus for us anymore and we deliberately wanted our newer, more sophisticated, high-performance skincare to take over. We’ve had our marketing focus on that. We stopped sending out product to influencers last year because we were sending out so much product people weren’t using it. One, it’s expensive and two it’s really wasteful, like the carbon footprint of just sending coffee scrubs all over the world and no one’s doing anything with them. It felt at odds with our sustainability ethos. So now we’re very particular with who we do work with. We created an ambassador program and it was interesting when we first launched the ambassador program, the uptake was pretty poor. We had to play with the language a lot to get good uptake there. For example, if you were an influencer that I wanted to work with, I’ll send you free product all year for you to post. That language automatically devalues your product. But as soon as we flipped that language to say we’ll send you $200 worth of product every quarter, you’re giving that product a monetary value. It feels more meaningful to the person receiving it and that small tweak changed everything for our ambassador program.
Can you tell us a little bit more about shifting focus to TikTok and less on Instagram?
Tik Tok really required there to be a person or a face to that particular page, whereas Instagram you didn’t need that. We were a brand that had never been developed around the founders personas. In the business community people know who we are but our customers don’t know who Jess is and they don’t really care, they care about the product. So we found that sort of a barrier to entry for us and there was a lot of pressure on the team to try and create very of-the-moment funny content. We’ve really flipped our strategy to not necessarily be about our content creation but utilizing the platform of influencers with the goal of making the brand famous. I think there’s been some really interesting case studies in the beauty space from like Glow Recipe and Cava. They’ve scaled and basically put their products on the map through that type of strategy, but it wasn’t our strength. I think one of the best things you can do as a marketer is acknowledge your weak points. I thought we’re spending so much time creating content, it’s not gaining traction. It’s like I was referenced that very cliché quote around you know doing the same thing expecting different results is the definition of insanity. We’ve been doing this for a year and a half like this is just stupid at this point. What a waste of time, what a waste of money, we need to try something else.
Comparing early days Frank to now, what do you miss?
There’s more pressure now. I think we launched in a bit of a laissez-faire way because we didn’t know what we were getting into. So that I miss, almost my own naivety about what we could do. Now after 10 years of doing this, my job is so different now. I live in spreadsheets and budgets and it’s very interesting in its own way, but there was something about this kind of endless possibility when we were launching. I think that early stage, that excitement, that enthusiasm that you have, I know that’s so intoxicating. I do miss that because it’s hard to keep replicating that. I think that’s a common journey for founders right? Like you start this thing and it’s fun to create something. When you’re the CEO or you know an executive, you don’t really get to do the fun stuff anymore. It’s a lot of people leadership and for some people that is fun, but for the founder I think the idea of creating things and marketing and selling, and now you have to worry about numbers, people leadership, and inspiring others. It’s very different. It’s not probably what we thought we were signing up to.
Can you talk us through your co-founders and the different roles they play?
There were five of us originally. One co-founder moved on about 7 years ago. Now there’s four remaining co-founders and we’ve been friends for I don’t know 15 or so years. We found it really interesting because our background and our expertise is so similar. So it was always more challenging for us to sort of carve out our own unique path. For the first couple of years it was just a jumbled mess. We’re all trying to do everything. We had our lanes that we naturally went into but we didn’t sort of clarify our roles enough. I think that was a really big challenge for us in those early years. As a founder you feel like you’re supposed to be across everything, so you need to take a step back, clarify your role if you’ve got multiple founders and just stay in your lane. When you come together to ask questions, that’s your time, but there’s nothing more frustrating than someone sticking their head into your project halfway through and then getting out and getting in the way and changing what you’re trying to do. Now we’re much better at that. So Steve is CEO, Alex is COO, I’m CMO and Bri is head of new revenue and growth. We finally found our way and we just come together and a founder catch-up each week and that’s when we use our time to sort of crossover and work on projects.
What was your role in the original days and how have the roles changed?
We didn’t have titles so no titles and we did everything. So every component you could think of that falls into the remit of marketing, myself, Bri and Ari, we just did all of it together because in those days it was a volume game. We managed all the PR, we did all of the community service and customer service, the community management and customer service, we did all of the influencer posting like sending out product and all the communication, all of the content creation, emails. We just didn’t stop working until we brought on our first employee and they started to do the customer service. Then we brought on the next person and they took PR off our hands. It was about three, two or three years in, I put my hand up and said I’d really like to take on a formalized role as creative director. I did that role for a portion of time. We had an external employee come in and she took on the CMO role so none of the founders were doing it because we didn’t feel that we had that expertise at that time. Fast forward another five years and I really felt ready to take on that CMO role so I put my hand up again and said this is how I’d like to evolve my role. I’ve grown past the point of wanting to be a creative director and I think that’s often forgotten about founders. You also have the need and the desire to progress in your career. You don’t want to be doing the same thing day in day out for 15 years.
How have you been able to develop as a leader?
Time and mistakes are what led me to be the type of leader that I am now. I know my leadership style. I like to lead from a place of vulnerability and honesty. So if I’m having a crappy day, I’m not going to come to the office in a pessimistic and horrible mood. I’ll just talk to my team honestly about oh my daughter kept me up all night last night, I’m really tired so I’m struggling to focus a little bit in this meeting. And you create a safe space for your team to then also talk openly and honestly. And when you work in a psychologically safe space, which is how my old 2IC talked about our space, people can do better work. So that’s my real goal as a leader. My team need to feel safe, they need to feel nurtured. Doesn’t mean that they’re not ambitious and they’re not held to their KPIs and they’re a very accountable team, but I don’t think anyone can do really great work if they’re constantly worried about how they’re being perceived. So that’s my leadership style. It took me a long time to get there. I know I don’t manage down from a to-do list perspective very well just due to time. So I’m very fortunate to and I guess deliberately we hire people that can manage up really well. It gives them the opportunity to really grow and it means that my time isn’t spent looking at other people’s to-do lists, it’s being there to answer core questions for them when they need me.
How have you been able to manage those relationships because people often talk about like don’t mix friends with business?
I think when you have that layer of friendship involved, when you need to have difficult conversations, you’re worried about how it’s going to impact your friendship outside of work. We’ve gotten much better at that. In the early days I’d say that we just didn’t talk about things that we needed to enough. And you know if someone wasn’t pulling their weight which will naturally happen, I would have been that person at one point in time, like everyone gets ebs and flows in the way that they bring motivation and energy to work. We wouldn’t have talked about that whereas now we’re so much better at just having honest conversations with each other and understanding that this is a conversation happening inside the workplace and I’m still going to go out and see you on the weekend. We’re going to get all of our kids together and have a fantastic time. I think that comes with the level of maturity as you get older as well. You know 35-year-old me versus 25-year-old me, two different people. And I cared so much about what other people thought. I was terrified of confrontation so I would never say what I thought. And then if you’re that type of person it will resonate with you when I say you have a lot of anger inside you because you have so many things that you haven’t said. They’re just building up and now I just try not to do that and will talk honestly and give my opinion about things.
Ariana Grande notoriously copied you guys. Can you tell us about that?
Ariana Grande was blowing up and she had been gifted The Scrub by someone, I don’t know who, and loved it. So there were a few interviews where she was talking about Frank body and I’m like this is so cool, like she’s Bella Ray, she loves to ask this tiny brand from Melbourne. This is amazing, this is going to really help us grow in the US. And then fast four to six months it’s like Ariana Grande has released her own coffee scrub at Ala and I thought like we’re done. She has this platform of millions of dedicated fans that she’s talking to, like there’s no way that we can compete against this. This might be the end of Frank. And it wasn’t because I forgot how strong the brand that we had created was and how easy it is for some celebrities to just slap their name on a product and think that that’s going to be enough to sell it to people. But people are clever and I don’t think a lot of brands give consumers enough credit for their smarts. And it showed me that our customer base was so loyal and that we were experts in not only a brand but we made really, really high quality products. And as we continued to release new products, that coffee scrub just sort of sat on the shelf not going anywhere because nothing was done with it. And I don’t think it even exists anymore. It just sort of faded off into the background. But at the time my God, I thought our business was over.
What strategic moves did you make to evolve the Frank brand?
We had so many copycats in those early days. People would copy the product, they’d copy the brand and the tone of voice. We had people rip off the source code from the website. It was just you know the lowest of lows in terms of what it takes to launch a business. We were worried about it for a period of time and then we thought all this energy that we’re spending worrying about these copycats is energy that could be spent growing our business and focusing on how to differentiate ourselves. And it highlighted the need for us to no longer be that Instagram brand which is how people refer to us. Oh you’re that brand on Instagram. This is dangerous because yes and it was amazing to launch our brand that way, but we need to build our credibility as a skincare and beauty brand and no longer be talked about as that Instagram brand. So what strategic moves do we need to make to leave the pack of copycats behind and become a serious player in the beauty and skincare space. And so that led us to our partnership with Mecca because who does beauty and skincare better in Australia than Mecca? Not really anybody. So that partnership was one was sort of groundbreaking for them because their whole business model was taking brands from overseas and offering them exclusively in Australia but they knew how strong our brand was.
What advice would you have to founders that have a brand purely direct-to-consumer right now and they’re looking to get into retails?
Go in very curious. So I wouldn’t make assumptions about what any retailer can do for you. I think going into those meetings you need to be asking a lot of questions and talking to as many brands that are in those retailers as possible. You have to do your due diligence and you have to understand the upside that comes with moving into those retailers but all of the potential downside. So you might be working in some retail like partnering with some retailers but losing money for the first three years because they expect you to invest so much in you know VM or marketing. So that channel could be running at a loss. Can you afford to do that for two years until it becomes a positive contribution margin channel three or five years down the track? Those sorts of things I think if you’re not an expert in that space, which we weren’t and we learned some of those lessons the hard way, find someone who has experience in that space and bring on someone in your team or even if they’re a consultant or just talk to other brands because you’d be surprised how much other founders are willing to share. Learn as much as you can and then don’t be too swayed by what a buyer at a retail store wants you to do. Like know who you are as a brand, know what your customers want when it comes to products and stick to your guns because they’ll sort of push you in a direction but they’ve got no skin in the game. So if it doesn’t work, it’s not them paying for you, it’s you paying for that return to vendor and all of that stock that you’ve created that didn’t move because some buyer told you that that was going to be the thing.
What does it mean to you the phrase “risk it for the biscuit”?
That’s like the lifeblood or the heart of Frank body and Willow and Blake. It was Bri who came up with that. The idea of that was that you know if if we never take a risk you never get the reward. And so as we grow, especially with you know so much more responsibility, larger team and a board, it’s really easy to become risk-averse. You don’t have that much to lose in the early days, but once you have something to lose, it’s very difficult to take the risks that are the things that really catapult you forward. So we have that when you walk into our office, there’s this huge sign “risk it for the biscuit” as soon as you walk in, it’s the first thing you see every single day. And when we’re sitting there arm-wrestling about things we should do sometimes and we can’t make a decision, we sort of look at each other and we’re like yeah, risk it, let’s do it. And it’s amazing, like the whole team have embraced that saying. It’s what we do.
Can you tell us around bringing in outside venture?
It started pretty early for us but by accident. We were not looking for external capital because we didn’t need it. We’re very lucky to be profitable from you know the first week because our investment was so low and we did everything ourselves. But I always said like the sharks were circling because that’s what it felt like. Like all these emails started coming in from VCs all over the world and we knew nothing about this space 10 years ago. We started taking phone calls out of interest to just learn about what was going on. We did that for about two years just kind of casually being courted by different types of investors until we realized that what we wanted was not necessarily just money but strategic money. So we stopped having conversations with most VCs and PEs and we really focused in on strategic partners. Think, you know, L’Oréal, Procter and Gamble, Unilever, those types of partners. And it was Unilever that ended up being our first investor and joined the board five, six years ago. And then we brought on private equity money in 2021 from a Chinese firm called Everise and that again even though it was PE money, it was a very strategic partnership for us because we were trying to push into China now that the legislation around animal testing had finally changed.
Can you share if you guys are profitable now or you still sacrificing profit for growth?
We go back and forward depending on the year. So going into next year I think every business in the world should be focused on profitability. I don’t think if you’re growing profitably into a recession, it’s probably in my opinion not the smartest business decision because there’s a lot of risk already in the market. So that’s our focus for both businesses next year, grow but do it in a very smart way.
What’s been the most challenging time at Frank or for you as a founder?
There’s been so many. I think when one of my business partners left about 7 years ago, that was probably the most challenging time. You know our friendships and the business was so entwined and that was a real cultural upheaval for both Willow and Blake and Frank. That was incredibly challenging and I felt heartbroken, we all did. Time heals those sort of wounds though. I’d say the second biggest challenge was coming back from maternity leave. I stepped away from my active day-to-day roles for six months but my director and founder duties never end. My daughter was about 6 days old and we were in the middle of our ever year raise. So I’m literally breastfeeding her on board calls, meeting with people that want to give us millions and millions of dollars, reading really intense contracts while I’m completely sleep deprived, recovering from surgery. It just doesn’t stop when you’re a founder. I was in this most beautiful time of my life as a woman and a mother and in this really hard time as a founder because it wasn’t, it was exciting but it was very difficult to sort of be on your A-game dealing with that sort of stuff and contributing meaningfully to a board call when you’ve like slept for 40 minutes.
Do you think the beauty industry is oversaturated?
I don’t necessarily think it’s oversaturated. I think we’re going to see more and more of the legacy brands have their market share taken away from them, which I think is a good thing. It’s giving space and opportunity to younger founders and more diverse founders. I’m really, really thrilled to see how many women and people of color are launching brands now and seeing the success that they deserve and actually creating products for themselves, who like you know a like-minded customer base rather than some like 70-year-old dude in an ivory tower trying to market to a 20-year-old girl and he doesn’t know what she wants. Like that phase of beauty is over, which I think is really, really important.
What are the key elements to building a successful brand?
When you’re creating a brand, it’s really easy to nitpick things and that’s when you end up diluting the brand and the overall goal. You need to go with your gut and you can evolve things over time if you make a really stupid or critical mistake, but like you have to make a strong statement as a brand. You have to stand for something. You have to be unique and craft your own identity and voice. And if you don’t do that, yeah you might see some early success but that’s not the type of brand that is going to be memorable and sustained over 10 or 20 or 30 years.
Jessica Hatzis Business Stats
Jessica Hatzis transformed a simple coffee scrub idea into a global skincare powerhouse. Starting with just $10,000 in initial investment, she and her co-founders built Frank Body into a $100 million empire selling products in 179 countries. Their success was fueled by innovative social media strategies, strategic retail partnerships, and a bold brand voice that resonated with consumers worldwide.
- Founded Frank Body with just $10,000 initial investment
- Grew to $100 million in annual revenue
- Sold over 30 million products across 179 countries
- Started with 5 co-founders, now operating with 4
- Profitable from the first week of operations
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Startup Investment | $10,000 |
| Annual Revenue | $100,000,000 |
| Products Sold | 30+ Million |
| Countries Reached | 179 |
| Year Founded | 2013 |
Jessica Hatzis Method
Jessica’s approach to building Frank Body was centered around bold branding, innovative social media strategies, and strategic retail partnerships. Her method evolved from early guerilla marketing tactics to sophisticated retail expansion while maintaining the brand’s authentic voice and connection with customers.
- Created a unique brand character “Frank” to enable personal customer communication
- Leveraged user-generated content by sending products to influencers and early adopters
- Developed strategic retail partnerships with Mecca, Ulta, and Target to establish credibility
- Evolved product line beyond the original coffee scrub to become a serious skincare brand
- Adapted marketing strategy from Instagram to TikTok based on platform strengths and audience
Jessica Hatzis Tools
Jessica utilized various tools and platforms to build Frank Body’s brand presence and scale operations. From early social media platforms to sophisticated e-commerce systems, her strategic use of technology helped the company grow from a startup to a global beauty brand.
- Instagram – Primary platform for early brand building and user-generated content
- TikTok – Shifted focus to leverage influencer partnerships for brand awareness
- Mecca – Strategic retail partnership that established brand credibility in Australia
- Ulta and Target – Major retail partners for US market expansion
- Email Marketing – Direct communication channel with customers for retention and engagement
Key Notes
Jessica Hatzis’s journey with Frank Body offers valuable insights for entrepreneurs building a skincare empire. Her experience highlights the importance of strong branding, authentic communication, and strategic growth decisions in scaling a business from startup to global success.
- Strong brand identity and voice are critical for long-term business success
- Strategic retail partnerships can elevate a brand from online-only to mainstream credibility
- Adapting marketing strategies to evolving platforms (Instagram to TikTok) is essential
- Founder roles must evolve as the company grows from startup to established business
- Profitability can be maintained even during aggressive growth phases with smart planning
Get Started in Just 5 Steps
BUILDING A SKINCARE EMPIRE like Frank Body requires strategic planning and execution. Drawing from Jessica Hatzis’s experience, here are five key steps entrepreneurs can take to start their own successful beauty brand from scratch.
- Develop a unique brand identity and voice that stands out in the crowded beauty market
- Create an authentic social media presence that encourages user-generated content
- Focus on product quality and innovation beyond your initial hero product
- Strategically partner with retailers who align with your brand values and target audience
- Evolve your marketing strategy as platforms and consumer behaviors change
Conclusion
Jessica Hatzis’s journey in building a skincare empire with Frank Body demonstrates the power of bold branding, authentic communication, and strategic growth decisions. Starting with just $10,000 and a simple coffee scrub product, she and her co-founders created a global beauty brand generating $100 million in annual revenue. Her insights on brand building, social media marketing, retail partnerships, and team management provide valuable lessons for entrepreneurs looking to build their own successful businesses in the competitive beauty industry. By staying true to their brand identity while evolving their strategies, Frank Body continues to thrive as a testament to what’s possible with vision, creativity, and calculated risk-taking.