This episode is brought to you by Sendlane.   It took more than two years to develop PYT's first clean beauty product, says Co-Founder and CEO Mary Schulman. Potential manufacturing partners told them the products they wanted couldn't be made at the prices they wanted.   Mary says that perseverance and a commitment to PYT Beauty's mission got the company the products and investors that were a good fit.   Finding the right distributors was the key to success as well, Mary says. Ulta, Macy's, Credo, and Target all aligned with PYT Beauty's values, which made them great partners.   PYT's mission to remain moderately priced offers a student discount program aligned with Student Beans to make its products more affordable.   In Part 2, Mary talks about:   * The struggle of pursuing clean packaging. * How pushing back on potential partners is critical to staying true to a mission. * Lessons learned in her snack food company proved compatible with her new venture. * Work with influencers who love your brand. It's more authentic. * Beauty is a saturated industry, so you need to stay true to your particular mission. * Her company's "hero" products. * Why it's essential to be "present in the moment."   Join Ramon Vela and Mary Schulman as they break down the inside story on The Story of a Brand.   For more on PYT Beauty, visit: https://pytbeauty.com/    Subscribe and Listen to the podcast on all major apps. Simply search for “The Story of a Brand,” or click here to listen on your favorite podcast player: Listen now.   *   This episode is also brought to you by Sendlane.   If all DTC companies were forced to turn off Facebook ads, they'd be dead on arrival. Why is that?   They over-invest in paid acquisition and under-invest in retention.   Luckily, Sendlane makes it easy to solve this problem. Sendlane is an E-Commerce Customer Experience Platform helping hundreds of DTC brands to tighten their existing customer relationships.   Sendlane automates personalized customer experiences through Welcome and Abandoned Cart workflows, SMS, Deep Data Integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce, multi-store functionality, and much more.   Plus, they don't stand for lazy customer support. Their San-Diego-based team has an average 1-minute response time from a live human, making sure you never get stuck in a chat queue ever again.   Curious about how Sendlane can help your DTC brand grow? Schedule a demo with a Specialist. Visit https://www.sendlane.com/story