Episode Transcript
Kyle James (00:00.78)
Hey, welcome to the AI Chronicles podcast. I'm your host, Kyle James. Today we're going be diving in headfirst to how a company called Cheekbone Beauty Cosmetics is using AI inside of their own business. And we'll share the exact steps that you can take in order to implement AI for yourself. Now, before I dive into that, listen closely. Are you looking to implement AI inside of your own company or just struggling to get your AI to stop hallucinating? Speak to GPT Trainer. GPT Trainer literally builds out and manages your AI.
for you, eliminating hallucinations for good. Go to gpt-trainer.com. I promise you it'll be the biggest time saving decision that you've made all year. Trying to set up AI on your own is like trying to build a house from scratch. Sure, you could do it, but the time of frustration is gonna take you to get it finished, just isn't worth it. It's a thousand times faster and safer to hire professionals. Schedule a consultation today. again, that's gpt-trainer.com.
Today I have with me Jen Harper, who is the founder and CEO of Cheekbone Beauty Cosmetics, a cosmetics brand focused on sustainability and supporting Indigenous communities. So excited to have you on the show today, Jen. Welcome in. How are you doing?
Jenn Harper (01:14.853)
I'm doing great, how are you?
Kyle James (01:16.91)
doing fantastic. So excited to have you on. So tell us a little bit more, like what is cheekbone beauty cosmetics like, and maybe a little bit of like the origin story of like how you founded the company.
Jenn Harper (01:26.811)
Yeah, it's really long and I gotta keep it as tight as possible for you. So I actually had spent my entire career in the food space. In January of 2015, I had an actual pop out of bed dream, three native little girls covered in lip gloss. And when I woke up, I wrote, I wanna figure out how to make this lip gloss. And I wanted to use a portion of the profits to do something to support my indigenous community. So I come from the Ojibwe tribe nation.
and when I was learning about my grandparents history and how they were put into what is called like this boarding school residential system. And unfortunately that had caused a ton of negative impacts, not only just in my family, but in so many of our indigenous communities. And we're still living with those impacts today. And I thought, how can I do something? And I was a huge fan of brands like Tom shoes in Patagonia always have been.
And it was really new, this is 2015, this concept of like, you can do business and do good at the same time, if you will. And so that was the whole original purpose. Now, fast forward to where we are today. I was at the time of that dream selling fish in the food industry. And what I have learned over the last 10 years is kind of what brought us to where the brand is. And so I had started using private white label, which is thanks to globalization.
anyone was willing to sell us a beauty product, slap our logo on it and call it a day. Immediately about a few months into the brand and launching our e-commerce store and I would get questions from customers about ingredients, the packaging we were using and I literally sat in my basement, because that's where the business started, completely embarrassed and just this realization that I had no idea what I was selling people.
and the people that were selling us these products were never going to be willing to share it. It had been months that I had been ghosted several times asking questions and I just realized there was a reason they weren't talking about things. And the more I did research on certain types of ingredients, in particular, you know, when we talk about long wear makeup in the color cosmetics category, so that's what Cheekbone Beauty is, we are a color cosmetics brand. So anything for lips, eyes and face.
Jenn Harper (03:48.213)
And when you talk about a long wear lipstick, for example, there's ingredients, unfortunately, in that product that's making it long wear that aren't actually good for people or the planet. so literally spent the next six years figuring out how it was going to make our own products and learn to formulate without a science background, without a chemistry background, without any of it. And really proud of where our brand is today.
We literally say that we are products, one that are better for people and the planet. And we look at this whole clean beauty and air quoting category differently than most major brands and major retailers. Unfortunately, everyone looks at these ingredients and say, yes, they're safe for the human. That's great. That clean beauty means it's safe for the human. These ingredients have been tested and that's fine. But what I've learned about a lot of the ingredients, they're not unfortunately safe for the planet. And so,
ingredients like dimethicone, isodiacane, these ingredients do not break down when they reach back into an ecosystem. So when you wash your hair, your face, your makeup off at the end of the day, you're in a lake, ocean, river, these ingredients will not biodegrade back into that ecosystem. And so at Cheekbone Beauty, we've taken that very seriously based on our Indigenous roots. feel like Indigenous people, if you look anywhere around the world, we are the people that are the most concerned about the planet. We are the ones protesting pipelines.
We're in the Amazon protesting deforestation. We're in fisheries protesting aquaculture, which is fish farming that is really disruptive to our oceans. In Australia, New Zealand, anywhere you go, it's these communities that I come from that really have this innate relationship with all living things. And so we took that, we built what we call our Indigenous Innovation Lab at our headquarters, and we marry ancient Indigenous wisdom.
and our past ways of doing things with Western science. So how we create and make products today. And our whole product line and formulation theory is when we make something using more naturally derived ingredients, we'll then allow it to break down when it reaches back into an ecosystem. So very proud. We've made incredible, efficacious color products that everyone is loving and falling in love with. We've won so many awards for all kinds of our
Jenn Harper (06:13.435)
products, but I won't get into all the details of the amazing products that we have.
Kyle James (06:15.894)
Yeah. Yeah, no, that's, that's amazing. And like, love how like going from like just a dream like that to completely imagine that was just life changing where like you're in the food industry and then it's all of a sudden it shifts. And for the next couple of years, you're, you're, you're obviously white labeling and then you're trying to figure out the product and then you're trying to, you know, change the ingredients and then going back to like, guess like almost like finding your own ingredients and doing your own thing. it turns into and
I imagine like that just, completely changed your life from that one dream. And then all of sudden it was, it was different, you know? So walk me through a little bit. So I know you're using a little bit of AI over at cheekbone beauty cosmetics. Like what exactly, like when did you start applying AI and like, why did you introduce it? And what types of challenges were you trying to, to figure out or solve by using AI?
Jenn Harper (06:51.386)
Yeah.
Jenn Harper (07:09.861)
Yeah, and this is such an interesting question for us as a brand because I was very hesitant in the early years and because this has been in development for quite some time and especially as an entrepreneur, you're always looking for ways to make your life easier or something that is a tool that's going to get the work done so that you can really go focus on how to scale a company.
I really held back for a long time, so it would have been only the past two years. And the reason was, is all the research I was doing on the environmental impact of AI. However, having amazing conversations with leaders at Google and the work that they're actually doing to make this more of an environmentally friendly system when we're talking about their systems like Gemini and talking to a lot of other founders and doing research on the work that's being done to sort of...
counteract, right? Or we all know the word of like neutrality, whether it's like carbon neutrality, that sort of thing. So that is being worked on. And it actually gave me sort of pause and grace to move forward when I was thinking about how as a small business, you know, it's something that we had to step into because there we are six people. We always say we have this big company energy. And it's amazing to me that in 2025,
what six people can actually accomplish. Like we're sold at Sephora in Canada. That's one of the biggest beauty retailers in the world. We're sold at JCPenney in the United States. And we have all of these, we're sold in Europe and we have all of these, our e-commerce platform is very healthy business for us. And so we have all of these distribution channels. How are we gonna make our jobs more efficient? And this is when I gave everyone an assignment on our team that if you find something that is literally gonna help you get
some of the work done and help you get it done faster than we're going to use it. And so we all have this now mindset where we will dive in heavily and research and investigate what tools in the AI category are best for us. We know agents are just so popular in terms of how it can solve so many of our problems. So one way in the last few months that we've just been testing it is through meta ads. There's an organization that's now embedded into our system and how it's actually
Jenn Harper (09:27.867)
So for years, you're using a marketing agency, playing a massive retainer between five, 10,000, depending on the agency. Like these are huge costs for a small business. And then you have human beings on their team is the one that's going through the ads and the content and the creative. We now have this AI tool embedded and I stopped using Meta ads probably just at the, in 2022 because we, after iOS, we just saw this huge dive. Nothing was working like it once did.
Kyle James (09:52.984)
Mm-hmm.
Jenn Harper (09:57.647)
And I was like, we're pausing this until we figure out something because we couldn't afford technically to constantly pay these agencies. And at the end of the day, you can spend a million dollars a month on Meta ads and get a million dollars back. But is that really the most useful way you're spending your money? If Meta is really just giving you a one for one, like that's not a great return, right? So, it's a great way to get in mind for customers, but is it really how you're gonna grow your business? So we wanted to like shred it.
and start from the beginning. So the last few months we've had this tool and it has been absolutely insane how fast we're seeing what's working and what isn't. I can't even, I don't even have numbers to share with you just yet, because we just started with it, but it is absolutely incredible. Like in two weeks we had saw, and it's like, we're tossing up so much creative and it's actually helping us pick and make better content.
and better creative because of all of the data that it's finding and it's just happening so quickly. And so that has been game changing. In the beauty industry, really cool are AI tools that help the customer try products on. And now this is something we've been testing for years. It's a company called Perfect Corp. We were using them about three years ago. And at that time, it was pretty terrible. Like a customer could pretend to have their shade of lipstick on.
And then they could test all your shades through this product. And back then it wasn't so great, but it's gotten so much better. we're reconsidering going back and adding another portion of their platform to our website. There's obviously the main things. The entire team, it's like our whole Outlook suite is connected to all of the regulars, chat, GBT, whatever one.
our team wants to be using, use that to help us answer people and solve problems faster. We use it with our CRM, our customer service team is using it. It's just helped us as six people in a small business get things done so much quicker.
Kyle James (12:07.47)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Like, and you know, going back to like, initially, like when you first started looking to AI and you were a little bit hesitant, like what, I mean, obviously now that you've, you've made the change, right? Like obviously it starts with you and then obviously, and then you go from there, your team makes the changes too. But like, if you didn't make that change initially, um, and I kind of want to bounce around here a little bit with Jen, because like, what was it? The first thing that you heard, like you had those conversations with like Gemini and like some of Google.
Like, what did you hear that was like, okay, actually we can do this. And on the flip side, like, what if you never took that leap of faith and said, okay, we're going to start implementing AI. Um, like what would it have been like, you know, now, like if it would your team still be on the same trajectory, their head is revenue still saying, like, walk, like, walk me through a little bit of that, dynamic, um, that you went through.
Jenn Harper (12:56.603)
It's really interesting if we look at the correlation between our business's growth in the last two years and when we've implemented AI. I can literally see that it has supported the growth of our business in terms of our numbers.
This year over last, our business, our e-commerce business has grown 50 % and our wholesale business has grown like 250%. So like we've just seen this massive growth in particular over last year to this year. And we started using AI probably at the end of like 2023. I was using it a little bit before we were using Jasper. One, I'm a terrible writer, like my grammar, everything. So I was always using Jasper to help me write.
better emails, write better copy for the products, all of those things. But in the last two years when we've implemented it into quite honestly, every aspect of the business, even like thinking about product development, right. And even thinking about now, I, you know, had just discovered the platform called Replen about like, we were thinking of making another website. And then of course, we're like, Shopify template. And then I was like,
did this research on, I was like, we could literally build this ourselves because it's for another segment of the business related to cheekbone, but not cheekbone where you'd be selling or buying products. It's more about our, a different revenue stream we're planning on manufacturing for other businesses at some point. And so we were like, we could do this. Literally, I got stuck on it in an evening after work and I'm like, this is insane. Like, wow, this whole, and it really just helped me recognize I'm,
49 this year and so I am NOT from the beginning days of the tech generation I feel like my kids are leap years ahead of me but when I recognize how we will get left behind if we are not jumping in to these tools and This is going to help us scale a business and to it profitably finally This will be the first year that our company is profitable
Jenn Harper (15:02.811)
or we're breaking even. I'm like, if we get profitable by one dollar, I'm still gonna tell everyone we're profitable. But that has been, it's been a tough few years and to be able to do that and see how much work six people can actually do.
Kyle James (15:18.03)
Yeah, absolutely. And like there's so many, I think it's really cool. example you gave where like they could try on like the, like the lipstick and the cosmetics like beforehand. And obviously there's so many other tools out there that, can really, you know, take, take what you're doing and enhancing it to, provide a better customer experience. But like for going into like, you know, who knows where it's going to be in a couple of years, like where do you see maybe AI playing some of the biggest role in your operations next and the upcoming initiatives?
Jenn Harper (15:37.005)
Exactly.
Jenn Harper (15:49.123)
Yeah, we're actually doing a whole rebuild right now. We implemented an ERP system a couple years ago and operationally, I've learned, know, as entrepreneurs, you've learned the, I'm like, we are not in the beauty industry team. We're actually an operations stinking logistics team. And if we don't figure that part out, we're not going to have a business. And so we went back and we're rebuilding operationally, like literally going back from like building.
demand planning, forecasting that, and then the actual demand plan to make sure that everything that we order from our large scale manufacturers and that we need and that we're, whether it's a carton, a component, or the raw materials of all of the ingredients, that we're actually not sitting on too much inventory, because that can be detrimental to your cash flow and all of those sorts of things. So this, I believe,
And what I'm seeking right now is, because as we're in the process of rebuilding this, and it's humans doing this, what can we put into this system that is actually going to help us be better at it? And that is when you're being alerted of what's low, what's coming, what you have too much of, we've found ourselves in. So I think inventory operationally, in the next few years, I know.
that it's all gonna look so different because as soon as a business and CPG can get that part of your business so, so streamlined and tight, you are just rocking, right? Like that is where you will find you're able to scale, because you actually understand how much stuff you have to give in terms of your distribution channels and what you can't and what you cannot do. And then what you need to do in order to grow, it'll help us when we go for, you know, we've only
Kyle James (17:30.742)
Hmm.
Jenn Harper (17:41.221)
really done our seed round of funding and we plan a series A for next year. And so I think we'll just be in a better position to go after more capital when we can actually have those conversations. But implementing AI into our operations, I think it's going to help us get there so much faster. So that's the space we're in right now.
Kyle James (17:58.284)
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So like even with like this, you know, during the series of funding, like, you know, we've, we've seen like the YC that's the really big one within the tech industry and just having like the AI, like that you mentioned, like as the upcoming AI initiatives using like to, build out some of that, that inventory operations where it's way more streamlined. Like some of those investors might actually be like, cool. You're using AI. Awesome. I'm trying to get more into that as far as investing goes. And so I can see that being a huge piece.
As your team steps into like more operations within the AI, within the cosmetic space and even that revenue, the other opportunity that you mentioned where you're going to crack a different type of revenue income. think that's, that's a really awesome opportunity as well. But so if, as we start wrapping up here, Jen, like where can people learn a little bit more about you that you'd recommend them checking out? And then maybe even about cheekbone beauty cosmetics.
Jenn Harper (18:48.985)
Yeah, for sure. So come visit us at cheekbonebeauty.com. is our place where you'll find out everything about us. You can follow us on our socials. We are cheekbonebeauty on Instagram, TikTok, everywhere. And I'm cheekbonejen. So if anyone ever wants to connect there, you can find me in all the places and LinkedIn. I'm just Jen Harper.
Kyle James (19:09.984)
Awesome. Thank you so much, Dan. Appreciate you having on the show today on AI Chronicles. I'm really excited for what you have in the future store for your team. And for those listening in, remember, if you're looking to implement AI into your business today, don't try and do it yourself. The time and stress that the AI could cause just isn't worth it. Schedule a call with GPT trainer and let them build out and manage your AI for you. That once again, that's gpt-trainer.com. Signing off for now.
Have a great rest of your day, everybody. Looking forward to seeing everyone on the next episode of AI Chronicles.
