 Today, we're excited to welcome someone who advocates for healthy personal care products. Harlow Sparksteel joins us to talk about Founding Lujia, a marketplace for the healthiest brands in personal care, beauty, and grooming for black consumers. This is School of Hustle, the show where we find advice and inspiration from people who are making their own way. I'm Shannon, the VP of Social Hierarch Go Daddy, and I live and breathe at the Hustle of Business. Today, we're filming from the Hustle of It All at the WeWork Time Square in New York City. Everybody, let's give Carlos the biggest warmest welcome. Thank you. You found Lujia, a company that finds the healthiest brands and tests the products specifically for the black community. Why is this mission important to you? This mission is important because I feel that black consumers have really been at the back of the bus and the personal care beauty and grooming industry for so long. And it's really time for us to have a place where we can go and shop a piece of mine, knowing they're a recater too. And that's what we're doing with Lujia by providing a healthy offering of products with your needs that are unique to you, your skin, your hair, your body, and just like your values and morals. What does Lujia mean, and where did the name come from? That's a great question. So when I started the company, actually I didn't have a name at all. I had the idea. So we had a namey workshop in Brooklyn, I guess a couple years back. And we were throwing out all kinds of words and phrases that we wanted the name to represent. Like love, care, happiness, joy, a feeling of being home, a feeling of being like catered to and cared for, right? From that workshop came the word hallelujah, and from hallelujah we got Lujia. Now obviously it's still a different L-U-Y-A, but that's where Lujia comes from. What kind of a criteria do you look for, and what is your process? So when it comes to finding brands to work with essentially, I look for two main things. One are healthy products that are effective, and two is great branding. Now the way I find these products traditionally is either product fairs and trade shows or on social media. As a matter of fact, I would say Instagram is probably my biggest channel for partner acquisition and identifying new brands. Once that process happens, if we find a brand that I like, I'll reach out to them. I'll have a conversation with the founder or the head of partnerships, learn more about their brand, their values, what they're about, why they were founded. I'll tell them about Lujia and about what we represent, what my vision is, and if there's synergy there, if there is some life modernness, so we could explore a partnership. Typically what happens after that point after that conversation is they will send us products, we'll test it, we'll hand it out to our community, get feedback, and we'll essentially pick the top choices, or the best choices that match our product offering, our landscape, and offer those on our site. And you have products with you today? I do. Do you want to share anything? Sure, I can share some. We have three brands here, Plenipothec, Kerry, Trinity Hills, and Corosia. So these are some of our favorite products. This is a Corosia Shea Butter right here, infused with lavender, it's actually produced in East Africa, very soft to the touch, great for your skin, and again just a natural, high quality product, one of our fan favorites, one of our customer favorites. So I brought these for you and for the team, wherever you want some, wherever you can take some. Thank you. I prefer you to try them, to share them. Also this is the Trinity Hills shampoo bar. A lot of people use shampoo as a liquid form as usual. But I personally prefer the shampoo bar, because it doesn't slip out of my hand when I use it, I don't drop it, it doesn't drip out. It doesn't fall on your foot. It doesn't fall on my foot, and I can easily rub it against my scalp, or some guys use it for their beer. So it's easy to use, very easy to apply, and it's a different approach to shampooing, which I really love. Cool. Yeah. That's awesome. How did you become interested in his face? So a few years ago, I grew my hair out. As you can see right now, my hair is short, I have waves. I've had waves for the majority of my life, but a few years ago I grew my hair out, and I realized, and grew my hair out, that I didn't know how to take care of my hair. So I started getting tips and information from my friends, mostly from my female friends about how to take care of my hair, right? As far as what process should I use, what is shampooing about, what is conditioning more so about, how often should I shampoo, how often should I condition, and of course what product should I use. And over the course of this time, I was asking questions to friends for months at a time. Up to I would say about eight months, and I was getting all kinds of recommendations. And finally after some time, I got to a point where I was pretty comfortable with what I had heard and what I was buying. I had my regimen, and I was in my room one day. I was looking at my products and just observing them. And I picked up a bottle, and I turned it around, and I read the label. And I was like, what the heck is this? I couldn't pronounce anything. I didn't know what any of the ingredients were. You needed a chemical engineering degree to pronounce anything. And I thought to myself, this can't be healthy for me. And sure enough, I did five minutes of research, and I found tons of articles and research papers that link black hair and skin products to skin irritation, to hair loss, and to just straight up severe illness. And I thought that there's no way that it should be this way for our community. For one, it's hard for me to find information about what I need. And then when I find what I think that I need, it's not feeding me the way that it should be. And so that's what kind of sparked the idea for Lluia, the path of the trust place to go to, to shop, to buy, to purchase with a piece of mind. Why is it important for Lluia to exist? It's important to exist because black people deserve a trusted place for healthy personal care beauty and grooming products, right? Very simply. And for me, I think that I'm a super consumer. So before I buy our product, I'm going to look at the product. I am going to look at customer views. I'm going to go and find videos. I might research the founders. I might research the brand itself. I go through links, but not everyone has time for that. And I realize this, right? Not everyone's going to do that. So what Lluia does is we do the work for you. We find the best brands, we test our products, and we offer the best option. So we take all their hard work away from the consumers so you can come and shop with peace of mind knowing that whatever you buy is going to be healthy, it's going to feed your skin, your hair, and your body. We just make it as easy as possible. So, you know, it's taking black consumers from the back of the bus and putting them at the forefront of the industry. How can Lluia change the culture of consuming personal care products? I would say by curating seamless access to passive consumption. And by that, I mean, when it comes to consuming personal care products, especially in our community, we're really grandfather or grandmother into what we use, right? So essentially, you know, we use whatever our moms or our grandmothers gave us, especially in the black community. And we shop at corner stores and supply, beauty supply stores in our neighborhoods, right? And so we just buy what's there because that's all that we know. Now, if we replace those secondhand or second-rate beauty stores with Lluia shops, then all of a sudden our moms and grandmothers and we are buying Lluia's products. And now using healthy and natural products isn't a reach or a stretch. It's convention. It's what we know. It's what we use. It's what we grew up doing. So it becomes this thing where we have to adapt to to become a part of our everyday lives. It's what we grew up with. And now it's a part of our culture. What kind of feedback are you getting on your business? Are there any inspirational stories from customers? Feedback has been really positive. I think our consumers love our products, once they get their hands on it, because I truly believe that we curate the best brands out there. And when consumers can buy it and get their hands on it, they discover that. I think a story that stands out for me is I had a dad reach out and I was like, hey, you love your products. They're amazing. I buy them for myself. I buy them for my wife and I buy them for my kids. And that to me is amazing because it's hard to get just one person to change their consumer habits, much less to change the consumer habits of an entire family. So when we talk about changing the culture and changing consumption, it's a real change in a family, in the individual, in the neighborhood, and eventually in the community. What is your favorite inspirational story from a customer? So this is going to sound cheesy, but it's actually my mom. My mom is probably one of my biggest consumers of Blue-Yours products. And it's not because she just wants to support me, I promise. My parents are actually pretty frugal. So my mom buys the products because she's like, these are some of the best products that I've used. These serve me. These make me feel better, right? So the fact that I can have the impact in my own home or with my own family from something that I created is really powerful. Well, now we are going to play a game that we call Hustle Time. Time it takes you to get ready in the morning. 20 minutes. Favorite kid from Charlie the Chocolate Factory? Charlie? Most powerful emotion, anger, or love? Love. Who was the most successful person you know? My mom. Meatballs or fish? Fish. First record you bought with your own money? Bow wow. Favorite Disney movie? Ooh, Tarzan. Favorite movie? Forrest Gump. What is your favorite word? Hustle. Willy Wonka, Gene Wilder, or Johnny Depp? Neither. Biggest splurge? Myself. Sour candy or sweet candy? Sweet. Karaoke is about talent or commitment? Commitment. Wine, white, or red? Neither. Peanut butter, cups, or M&Ms? Neither. Would you rather have more time or more money? Time. Favorite breakfast food? Smoothie. Rather give up for life, pizza or sandwiches? Sandwiches. Would you rather never be able to teach your mentor or never be able to learn? Never be able to teach a mentor. Would you, if you had one thing to eat for the rest of your life, and it was for breakfast, what would it be? Smoothies. Look at it. Smoothies. Perfect. That was good. That was good. OK, you got one, 17, 18, 19, 20. Let's go. Looking in the mirror, I think it's entrepreneur. It can be kind of lonely and daunting. So looking in the mirror in the morning is a reminder that I always have myself. That's fantastic. Best piece of advice you've ever gotten? To not carry people think. So growing up, my grandmother always telling me that people are going to talk about you if you do good, and people are going to talk about you if you do bad. See if I can do what you want to do. Worst piece of advice? To be realistic. Being realistic, I never get anyone anywhere. How do you use your career to inspire others? Hopefully just to inspire them to put themselves first, put their passions first, and to work unapologetically. Ever felt like walking away? No, I only feel like figuring it out. One thing you still need to learn. Patience, something I work on. What do you want people to learn from you? I want people to learn to put themselves first and their desires and their passions and to just be unapologetic in serving themselves. What's next for you? What's next is I'm going to create a subscription box for Luya so their consumers can get their products monthly or buy monthly with their favorite brands. We're going to tap into travel with products as well. And I'm also launching a dedicated line of clothing products for 360 waivers. So started with a palm-y paste. And yeah, the Wavering Community has been at the background, up the background, up the background for a while. And I've been developing some formulas and some ideas for us and it's going to be, I'm excited. The brand is called Swimmin' by the way, Swimmin'. Wow, that's great. Who inspires you? I would say Master P and Dame Dash. Who challenges you? My uncle Nate's and my older fraternity brother, Dave Lollade. The next set of advice here is for our entrepreneur Moodle, hug. Okay. Here he comes. All right. What's going on, puppy? Oh. Moodle is inspired by Luya and wants to create a similar business for his community of hugs like himself. He's a bit overwhelmed by all of the research and the nuances that go into starting a business. What are some key things Moodle should know before embarking, pun intended, on the entrepreneurial journey? You know, I would say don't overthink it. You know, don't overthink it. Just kind of jump in and do what you can. I think for so many people, they're concerned about, you know, what they can't do or don't know how to do. But if you just start somewhere, I think you'll figure it out. It'll figure out a stuff, just leave with passion and leave with purpose. And if you leave with passion and purpose, then who you need and what you need will kind of fall into place very naturally. You'll see it over time. And just always be proactive about communication. Your idea out there, talking to your customers, your target customers, talking to people who could be potentially partners down the road and just, again, leading with passion and persistence. All right, you know you got that? Well, we always like to end School of Pestle with a final thought. Okay. And so I am going to share three quotes with you and ask you to tell me which quote resonates the most with you and why. Okay. Number one, it's better to fail an originality than to succeed in imitation. Number two, don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. Three, a goal is not always meant to be reached. It often serves as something to aim for. Okay. I think number two resonates the most. Okay. But before I say why, I want to say why. Number one and number three, don't identify with. Please. Yeah. Yeah. So number one was... It's better to fail an originality than to succeed in imitation. Yeah. I mean, I think most companies that exist are imitations of previous companies or previous ideas. Originality is there's something to be said for, but it's very few and far between. If you can take an ideal or something that's out there in the market and improve upon it and make money and be successful, do it. You know, that's all that's ever happened for the most part. So there is no shame in like improving upon what already exists. For number three, as far as having a goal and it being, I guess, something to reach for, I think that's something that's gonna be figured out in the process of entrepreneurship. So, you know, it's just gonna happen. But for number two, don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. This residence lobby cuts it boys down to the statement of don't make excuses, right? A toddler can't ride a bike initially, but they can mount it. A teenager can't drive a car, but she can sit in a driver's seat. A man doesn't know how to be a husband, but he can go and buy a ring, right? So what's the first steps you can do to kind of get to where you wanna be? If you take that approach, I think you'll be successful. Nicely said. Thank you. It was such a pleasure talking to you today. Thank you. I really, really enjoyed having you open up and tell us about your business. Thank you. And you have a great background. I love what you're doing. For sure. So for Luya, we are www.luya.care. So it was dot care, not dot com. And Luya spelled L-U-Y-A. We're also at luya.care on Instagram for the new brand Swimming, which is spelled W-W-S, sorry, S-W-M-N. That is weswimming.com. So we, S-W-M-N.com. And also weswimming on Instagram. Well, I know that everybody enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did. And for everybody watching, follow this man. And follow GoDaddy too, because every week we are bringing fabulous inspiration entrepreneurs and there's so many more conversations to be had. So follow and we'll see y'all soon. Thanks.