E:8 From Shower Thought to $50M Brand & Industry Leading Retention w/ Ryan Babenzien

In this Making Cents episode with Drew Fallon, Ryan Babenzien breaks down how he went from building GREATS to $20M and selling it to Steve Madden, to launching Jolie with a completely different business model focused on recurring revenue, high margin filters, and profitable growth from day one. Ryan explains how he started Jolie in 2020/2021, why the showerhead-plus-filter structure created a powerful retention engine, and how the brand generated $4M in its first nine months without spending on paid marketing. He shares how the beauty consumer shaped the pricing and positioning, why Jolie doesn’t think of itself as a showerhead company, how Erewhon became their top retail door from the beginning, and why subscription behavior became the core insight behind the entire business. The conversation also covers profitability discipline, category dynamics, copycats, team structure, and why running Jolie with fewer than ten people has been a strategic advantage. Chapters 00:03:31 From GREATS to $20M in Five Years 00:08:15 The Fast Steve Madden Acquisition Deal 00:11:10 Starting Jolie After the GREATS Exit 00:12:29 Bootstrapping Jolie Instead of Raising Early Capital 00:14:56 Why Beauty Economics Beat Footwear Economics 00:16:22 The Showerhead + Filter Revenue Model 00:22:44 Jolie’s 15× Retention Advantage 00:25:31 $4M in Nine Months With Zero Paid Spend 00:27:10 High AOV and High Margin at Jolie 00:31:07 Brand as the Financial Moat 00:37:54 Retail Wins: Erewhon and Salons 00:56:12 Scaling Toward $100M With Under Ten People