From a Grandmother's Recipe Book to Global Success: Meet Erika and Maria from Baiser Beauty

Erika Arguello and Maria Copello have built a luxury beauty brand focused on natural ingredients and beautiful design. Using traditional Mayan recipes collected by Erika’s grandmother, they create products that have rapidly developed a following. 

When their small business made it to the finals in a Martha Stewart competition, the two realized it had the potential to go global. Now, they’ve hired a new employee and are looking for the investment they need to grow even bigger. 

We spoke to Erika and Maria about the challenges that come with finding the right partners, how they plan their workday together and the *one*

regret they had when they were first launching their business.

Names: Erika Arguello and Maria Copello 

Business: Baiser Beauty 

Started: Summer 2014

What inspired you to create your company?

Maria: We’ve always been advocates of natural beauty and have a passion for the environment. We combined this with our love of art and design and Erika’s Mayan heritage to make Baiser Beauty, a conscientious brand that promotes self-acceptance and respect for our planet. Our products aim to make a difference to society — all are pure, organic, free from chemicals and use aromatherapy oils to balance the mind and spirit. 

Erika: My grandmother has an amazing book of recipes from Mayan medicine, which uses natural ingredients that have a positive effect on the spirit. For example, there are certain plants that make us feel at peace or combat depression. We wanted to combine these traditional recipes with a modern vision for beauty, so we created a new, better recipe book from which all of our products are developed.

Who were your very first customers? 

Erika: We started by selling to friends and family and came up with the idea of holding small gatherings to present our products and explain their wonderful properties. After that, our work started to spread through word of mouth. We found those early events really helped us to create a good customer base.

Maria: In our second year, we started to attend big craft fairs, which proved incredibly important to our business. They allowed us to present our products to a new audience and — even more importantly — we were able to meet our customers in person.

When did you know your business was going to work? 

Maria: In 2015 we became finalists in Martha Stewart’s American Made awards — that’s when we knew we had something special to offer! We had to put together a big campaign and get people to vote for us, but it was super exciting. We also got the chance to meet Martha and the team, which was amazing. 

What has been the biggest surprise so far after starting your own business? 

Erika: We knew we had good products, but we never imagined the huge, transformative effect they would have on some of our customer’s lives — especially those with acne and skin problems. That was a big surprise and amazing to see, confirming our decision to focus on high-quality natural ingredients and aromatherapy. 

In November 2016, two years after the business started, we took part in Black Friday for the first time. We received a huge number of orders, and around 90% were from returning customers — many buying three or four of the same product. It felt fantastic to know these people loved our formulas, especially because they’re created with so much love and respect for the planet. 

How do you price your products?

Maria: Pricing correctly for our target market has been key from the very beginning. As a young business, it’s important for us to research comparable products to determine the right cost. We also took time to factor in our expenses. This approach meant that once we’d come up with a price, we didn’t have to change it later or worry about running into trouble.

What does a typical day look like for you? 

Erika: I take the bus to Maria’s house each morning and we travel to the office together, arriving around 9.30am. Each week begins with a meeting to discuss our marketing plan and our budget for digital advertising. We might consider, for example, whether we have any videos to publish and promote or if we need to create a new post for our blog. Drawing up a schedule for the week really helps us to keep the business organized and stay on top of everything. We do our emails before noon, then we move on to marketing and sales in the afternoon. And we always work with music on!

Around 1pm we eat lunch together on the patio and relax for 30 minutes. A good work-life balance is something that’s really important to us. We work for just six hours a day, from Monday to Friday, so we finish at 4pm. Every Thursday we have an hourlong workshop on Reiki, meditation or mindfulness. It’s an approach we’ve found to be incredibly positive.

Maria: Outside of work we’re always looking at new art and design inspiration and researching the latest trends. Both of us are keen for that sense of artistry to come through in our products. I think that’s something that makes our business really special, because it’s more than just a beauty brand.

If you could go back in time, is there anything you would do differently when you were both starting your business?

Maria: If I could go back and change one thing, it would be to have had a reliable web platform like Squarespace from day one. In the six months that followed our launch, we used a platform that was hard to manage without the help of a developer, which required a lot of time and money.

When we made the switch to Squarespace, our e-commerce business grew so much more quickly and we had total control of our site.

What would you like to learn today from a community of other small business owners and self-employed professionals?

Maria: As we grow, our needs change. Right now we would be really interested in learning how to find the right investors for our business who can help us evolve. 

We recently hired a new team member to help with sales and our order numbers are on the rise, but we need money to help us grow. As young entrepreneurs, finding the answer to questions like that can be difficult.

Do *you* have tips to share with Erika and Maria?

If you have successfully navigated the challenges of finding an investor or figuring out how to raise capital for your growing business, we'd love to hear from you!

Share your own stories and experiences with financing your small business below. We can't wait to hear what you've learned along the way!