 The beauty industry is growing faster than ever before. Today, it's valued at an estimated 532 billion and growing as skincare products surge in popularity. There is an increased interest in organic and natural products. And our next guest, Orin Lavey, the founder of Soapology is leading this trend. His soaps and body products are handmade using natural ingredients from all over the world. And today, he's going to talk to us about how he grew this idea into a successful Manhattan storefront. Orin, welcome to the show. Hi, hi, how are you? It's so great to have you here, especially since I am a customer. I love your products. They're so high quality. And I really would love if you could just introduce what Soapology is, because a lot of the viewers may not know and hopefully when they're in New York, they can actually come and see the store firsthand or shop online. So tell us about Soapology. Okay. So Soapology basically is my passion, my boutique shop, SoapShop that I opened in 2007. It's located on the Midpeg District. Basically, we create what we are specialized in to create different fragrances for people. So what do you need in our store is that you can basically choose your own fragrance, your own smell, and we basically put it on the buttercream or the scrubs or many different other products that we have in the store. We're using mostly organic and natural ingredients and it's just an experience. And it's just like that you're going to the salad shop that you create your own salad and you know exactly what you want inside and what you don't want inside. So we're doing that with Skincare, which is very unique. You really can find something like that everywhere. I don't know if at all, but... Yeah, it certainly is very customizable. And I think your example of the salad bar summarizes it perfectly. And the way I actually discovered your store was very organically, which goes kind of with your organic products. I was walking by in New York and I noticed this beautiful storefront. Everything is brick and just so like rustic looking. You have all these jars stacked along the walls. It's so stunningly beautiful. I believe you even have an old-fashioned bathtub. Do you still have that in the back of it where you can actually try things firsthand? We have two bathtubs. Two? Wow. Okay, so there you go. And so I walked in. I was overwhelmed with the smell. It was so fantastic. And one of your employees came up and said, Would you like to try some things? And so she showed me some of your scrubs, which I still use today, by the way. I use your creamy scrub every single night. From there, that was it. I was hooked and I've been shopping ever since. So I'd love to hear more about how you came up with this idea because as someone walking into the store, it's such a cohesive, well-thought-out institution that you have. So what was your process? Let's talk about like dreaming this idea. When did you first come up with the concept for topology? First of all, the inspiration was apothecary. I very like the old-fashioned skincare. Just something about, okay, I'm a big fan of flea markets. So flea markets every weekend for so many years. And it's one of my, it's just so, so fun to see how everything was made and built back in the day. It was so much thought, passion and love into even little packaging or everything. They make everything to last forever. So I wanted to basically bring this old look, old feeling with what that people need these days, which is fresh, what we just said to create people's hands. And this is basically my inspiration. And you definitely see that when you walk in the store, it feels like apothecary. But why skincare? Out of all of the different categories you could choose, you chose skincare. And why is that? I always have, okay, skincare, we're going to go back to it, but I use to, I love cooking. And you know, cooking, process of cooking and process of making soap or even baking, it's kind of similar, not exactly similar, but it's like involved the same, the same technique. Yeah. And you have to make recipes to make your products similar. Exactly. And even though I'm cooking, I make sure it's everything, it's so beautiful because for me, the beauty, it's number one thing. It was, okay, I came from Israel. In Israel, back 15 years ago, when I opened it, it was very popular to open skincare boutiques in some times. And I thought that I can just do it nicer and better here in New York. And you have a store in Israel? In Israel, I had a little coffee in Tel Aviv, actually. I was making a little, like a little bakery shop. So it sounds like you've always been an entrepreneur. This isn't your first venture. Yes. I was, one more thing is that I was selling before that in New York, I was selling jewelry on the street. And I was making everything. And so I was... And you made everything by hand with the jewelry? Yeah. In high school, I studied, okay. So in high school, I studied how to be a hairstylist. Wow. You've covered everything. The first year, you studied hairstylist and fashion. Two teachers, they were both fighting about me. They both want me to choose what did they teach. So the hairstylist teacher fight for me to study hairstyle. And the fashion design teacher fight that I'm going to study fashion design. Essentially, you're an artist. It's just whatever you're currently interested in is where you put your passions. So right now it's skincare. Yes, exactly. I think that it's skincare. It's a little bit of everything. It's a little bit of... Because it's combined also beauty, because you have to make it beautiful and you have to make the label beautiful and you have to write the right packaging. And then of course you have to choose the right ingredients. And that's cooking. So you're checking that one off? Yes, exactly. This is what I feel. I think that it's going pretty well so far. I've been around for a couple of years, a little bit more, but people love it. Yeah, well I certainly love it. So tell me about what is the first thing you did after you came up with the idea for soapology? So the first thing that I did basically is to find the right recipes. Okay, it's actually not the recipe. It's to find what people like. Yeah, how do you figure that out? Just like you find what is the best recipe to make a cheesecake, you know? I love how you keep relating this back to food. Because it very much feels like that. It is a recipe you're creating. And I think part of the reason why all of your products smell so good is because you think about how they feel, how they smell, how they look. You're thinking you have the five senses in everything. The little bit of the touch, it's everything. My husband always says that. He's like the most important ingredient in cooking is love. And I always roll my eyes because I'm like, oh, come on. But you know, it makes a difference. Totally makes a difference. So Orin, tell me, why did you name it soapology? So I didn't even know how strong name can be and name of a brand. It can be so powerful. And I didn't know how powerful is apology until I was actually standing next to my store front and listen, everybody that's walking down the street and looking at the store saying the name. It's so powerful because, you know, it's not that you passing by every store and you're saying the name of it, you know? But something about soap and apology sound very, very right, very right. It also fits the image when you see the store front. Yeah, exactly. It's kind of vintage. It's the study of soap and it's just rolling very something about it. So I think that this is just the name did like great, great job, you know? So as the founder of soapology, if someone goes into the store, what is your favorite product there? And maybe what's something you think everyone needs to try? Okay, so the Dessie Sauce Club is amazing. The Dessie Sauce Club, it's a little bit more oily. So it's leaving residue on your skin and it's making your skin really, really, really soft and amazing. And there is vitamin E inside, bahoba oil and other amazing natural ingredients that make your skin beautiful. As long with the salt that gets rid of the dead skin and then your skin. Wow, I'm going to have to go pick that up next. So you started making it in your house, and today you have a factory. How do you go from making something by hand in your house to making sure the quality is as good when you're more mass producing something in a factory? Even though that we have a factory, we're making very small batches and we're not doing like, we have the concept of basically every day we're getting email from the shop. What did we basically getting low on and we're making it in a small batches. So everything, it's fresh and we have the exact amount of ingredients that you have to put on everything. So basically to move to a factory was just more comfortable. And everything is still handmade, I believe, right? Everything is handmade. Everything is handmade. Everything is handpicked. So, okay, you've created these products. You know that they're great products. You've tried them on yourself, maybe some family, some friends. You have a variety of different products. So what's the next step here? How do you market these products? How do you get attention on them? Did you start a storefront first? Did you start selling from your house? Talk about that process. Okay, so basically after that I choose the recipes and the ingredients, it was the time to choose the location. Then I start to look for store in New York, which is not easy, you know? No, please tell me. Okay, so I was looking at the prices of storefronts in New York. It is scary. Yeah. To say the least. No sense, make no sense. The prices are very expensive to rent a storefront in New York. Very expensive, very high. And then to find the right location and the right size you have to combine a couple of things together which is not making it easy, but very important, the location. So I imagine, yeah, it's very difficult to find the perfect place within a budget that you can afford and most likely it's very expensive so you have to pay for the storefront, you have to pay for all the products, you have to pay for the labeling, you have to pay for all of these different elements. Yeah, but in life you take risk. So I believe that it's going to work. That's such a great entrepreneurial mindset you have. I think all entrepreneurs are like, I believe in this idea, I know it's going to work and it's about believing in yourself. Sometimes you lose, but it's totally okay, you know? Love that. Even very wealthy people that you see today and you're like, wow, you know, like how you did it, they're going to tell you a lot of failure stories, you know? Everything worked out amazing every time, that never happens. Or that they lost and they go through some struggling and it's not as easy, but if you believe in something and you love something and you have to put all of the eggs in one basket, you know? Even if you can break them all, you know? Yeah. Even if you're going to break... I know, I'm not scared, because if I'm not going to put, if I'm not going to try, I'm never going to know. And if you don't try, then you're never going to get it anyway. Let's talk about marketing. I know that you're a creator, so marketing isn't exactly your favorite topic, but it is important when you're building a business. So what are some of the tactics that you use to market topology? Social media, online marketing, things like this. Okay, so basically in the store, the marketing is basically we're giving everybody the hand wash. Yeah, you got to feel the product firsthand. Yeah, that definitely, actually that's what sold me to buy the first product. So congratulations, it worked. So we make sure that people feel the product because when you feel the product, you just can't refuse to buy it. It feels so good. And we're also giving a lot of centers on the streets to people handling it to them outside the shop. What about online marketing? Online marketing. So we definitely try to keep, everybody that's coming into the store, we try to keep in touch with it. So we're taking everybody email and we have a promotion from time to time and we're sending them emails with all of the, we have different sales and basically the other way to, for marketing it's we're doing Facebook, like everybody else of course, and Instagram. It sounds like most of your marketing though is word of mouth marketing, where someone tries it like me and then I tell it to a friend. It's kind of fun today to meet a business that mainly relies on word of mouth marketing because if you're successful just through that way it says a lot about the quality of your products. Thank you. I think so, yeah. So with coronavirus we've had to change a lot about how we run our business and I know that store fronts in New York City and around the country have had to shut down. So that can tremendously impact a business especially one like yours that really does rely on people walking into the store and word of mouth marketing and samples. How have you guys been impacted and what are you doing to make sure that you will be successful long-term? So you're gonna be surprised. The pandemic wasn't so bad to us. That's great. Congratulations. That's a rare occurrence. We sold online just as much that we're selling on the retail store which was where Manez grew up online sales. People... Yeah, I mean we're selling skincare products so everybody needs soap. So did this make you rethink your store front model at all? It's make me think that online it's everything today. You see how many people can go by the store even if it's in the middle of the city of New York. You get maybe 100,000 a day but online you can get millions if you're just gonna do the right things. Exactly. There's no limit because people can order it from all over the world instead of having to go to the store to purchase the product. So have you changed your store front model at all then? Actually the store we just did the beautiful renovation just now because that it was closed for long. The store is the store and the online is online. With the tourists not being here it's impacted a lot of stores in the city because tourism is a major industry in New York. We have 65 million tourists a year and if you remove that I mean it's a tremendous decrease in sales and all different types of things so you are very lucky that your online sales have really picked up and I think moving forward as the pandemic ends you'll see that your business will be more successful because now you have online, you have in-store instead of mainly relying on your in-store presence. Sometimes you need to get a hit that you know you're not doing something right. Yeah, that's such a good way to think about it. That's kind of like how I've been looking at it as this pandemic has been terrible for so many businesses but maybe this is an opportunity to grow stronger so that once we emerge out of it we'll be even more successful than we were because we're going to build up new revenue streams that we didn't have before. So what would you like to improve about your business this year? One of the things that we really like to do is maybe to go partnership with one of the big department stores and... Oh, that would be huge for you, yeah. Orin, is there anything else that you want to share before we end this interview? Maybe something that you want to tell future entrepreneurs about starting their business? Don't give up. Do it with all of the passion and love that you can. Don't be scared. And even if it's not going to be good today, maybe it's going to be good tomorrow, but don't give up. That's beautiful. Well, thank you so much, Orin, for being on the show. It was so wonderful having you and thank you to everyone who's been watching or listening. Now, if you want to learn more about Soapology, you can visit SoapologyNYC.com or you can follow them on Instagram at Soapology underscore NYC. And of course, you can visit their store RealLife in New York. So that is all for this episode of School of Hustle. Keep up with all of our episodes on YouTube and anywhere you can stream or listen to podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a like, subscribe, share with friends, and we'll see you next time. Thanks for watching.