Drunk Elephant Founder Tiffany Masterson on Trusting Your Gut in Business

Tiffany Masteron’s grandma told her the name “Drunk Elephant” was the most asinine thing she’d ever heard. Granny wasn’t the only one – her friends thought so too. But Tiffany never bent when it came to her vision of the company…even though she was a stay-at-home mom with zero experience in skincare. Instead, she had this gut feeling about her ingredient formulation and trusted it was different enough to take the company far. Spoiler alert: it did.

In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Tiffany shares: 

• Why she chose to disrupt stay-at-home mom life to become an entrepreneur

• When she realized her first entrepreneurial journey was kinda sketchy 

• How she discovered the Drunk Elephant “Suspicious Six” philosophy – and why it works 

• The moment she knew her company had “made it” (hello, Sephora) 

• Her response when consumers claim Drunk Elephant markets to kids

On What Her Work Taught Her Kids

Tiffany: Today, I look back and I used to be so sad when I would have to leave town and the kids needed me. But it was really good for them. They ended up learning skills by watching me work. It was quality over quantity. I made sure that when I was home, it was very quality time with them. And then when I had to be gone, they had that in their heads and hearts that they knew how important they were to me. So it wasn't just like I was gone, but it did teach them. It's interesting. I've got kids with solid work ethics. They're ambitious and they've got dreams and they're hard workers. And I don't know that I could have taught that to them on my own without a job.

On the Process of Developing a Skincare Product

Tiffany: I read so much. I mean, for years. For at least two years, just studying, reading articles and talking to dermatologists. Using the philosophy on people and testing it out and all that. And then when you go to hire the chemist, they look at it. So it's not like I'm doing it in my kitchen and selling it. You find a great chemist. I have the philosophy, I chose the ingredients..but It wouldn't have made it through if it wasn't sound and all of the ingredients are research-backed. The second you get a formulation and you approve it with your ingredients that you've chosen, it goes through rigorous testing. Things don't fall through the cracks because of that. You can't just put a product on the market. You start hiring people and you hire all sorts of people to be on your team. So it's not like I am just a random stay at home mom creating these formulations and putting them on the market. It just doesn't quite work that way.

On Reflecting on Drunk Elephant’s Success

Tiffany: It was so out of the blue. I was so out of the blue in Houston, Texas. I wasn't in the industry. I wasn't familiar with that. I actually didn't even know the competitors in Sephora at the time. I couldn't even tell you. So the way I launched it was from out of left field and I didn't really know how difficult and how crowded it was. I don’t think I cared. But I wasn't ever cocky. I'm still not. I'm still kind of detached from it in a way. I don't feel like it happened to me. I don't think I walk in a room and come across as somebody who launched a skincare brand because I don't think of myself that way. I'm super grateful that it worked. I cannot tell you – I just kind of sometimes go, can this be real? But at the same time as feeling that way, looking back on it, I didn’t ever have a doubt. 

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