Like many small businesses, KNC Beauty started with a great idea. Founder Kristen Noel Crawley was on a trip to Japan when she first discovered lip masks. “With all the traveling and with the harsh winters in Chicago, my lips would get really chapped,” she said. The only thing she didn’t love about the Japanese products she found were the long ingredient lists.
Advertiser Content From
This advertising content was produced in collaboration between Vox Creative and our sponsor, without involvement from Vox Media editorial staff.
What small business owners need to know about managing their finances
Take it from a beauty founder who had to learn it all on the fly.
Photo illustration by Kelly Millington
“When I got back to the States, I tried to find a natural alternative and it didn’t exist. That’s when the light bulb went off to make my own,” she said. Her brand started with a collagen-infused lip mask in 2016, but quickly expanded to include other innovative products like a retinol-infused star-shaped eye mask and a hydrating leaf-shaped eye mask. In fact, innovation is key to her business’s success: “We were the first on the market to ever do a custom-shaped eye mask,” Crawley said.
Photo illustration by Kelly Millington
Although Crawley is brimming with new product ideas, she has to balance the desire to launch new items with the financial limitations of running her own business. In the beauty industry, bringing a brand-new product to the market can take up to a year — meaning businesses like KNC Beauty won’t see the revenue until months after they paid for the product to be manufactured. Because of that, careful calculations have to go into every product restock. To make sure she’s managing her business’s finances properly, Crawley uses Intuit QuickBooks to keep track of cash flow, payments, and banking all in one place. “If I have X amount of money in the bank account, I need to look at QuickBooks to see what is going out,” she said. “I also use it to help balance inventory, so I know how many products I have and I know when I’m going to run out. … It’s just really great to stay organized.”
QuickBooks also made it easy for Crawley — who had no financial background when she started KNC Beauty — to learn a slew of financial terms like accounts payable, accounts receivable, cash flow, and cost of goods sold. At first, Crawley said she felt like those terms were part of a foreign language she didn’t understand — “but that’s all part of just learning and part of what comes with starting your own business,” she said. Small business owners can also bank with QuickBooks Money, which allows you to earn 5.00% APY* on money you put away in savings envelopes.
Another lesson she had to learn soon after becoming a solopreneur in the beauty industry was just how much time, money, and effort goes into product development. The first step after Crawley has a new idea is asking her factory team to send her some samples of similar products to test. “For example, they sent me this serum that was really nice, but I am going to email them and say, ‘Hey, I want to change this, this, and that,’ and then they’ll work on sampling,” she said.
“You want to make sure that you always have a cushion when having a small business, because usually you’re the only person that you can fall back on, so the stakes are pretty high.”
Once the factory has formulated the product to Crawley’s exact specifications, she’ll put down a deposit — typically between 30 and 50 percent of the overall cost — to get the product into production. While her factory is working on the product over the next few months, she’ll begin thinking about the packaging. “Do I want it in a tube? Do I want it in a bowl?” Crawley explained. That process includes designing the exterior packaging, writing copy about the product, buying the barcode, and then sending the finished design to the factory that produces her exterior components. “The packaging honestly takes the longest, because I’m so detail-oriented,” she said.
After reviewing samples of the packaging and ensuring the finished product matches her vision, Crawley sends the packaging to the factory producing the balm, mask, or other beauty product so it can get filled, packed, and shipped to her warehouse for fulfillment. “In the meantime, while all that’s happening, I’ve got to come up with creative direction for the photo shoot and for the rollout,” including coming up with the art direction, casting models, and hiring a photographer, Crawley said.
Once Crawley adds a new product to the KNC Beauty catalog, she also has to stay on top of inventory. Even already developed products can take several months to be manufactured, so Crawley relies on QuickBooks to ensure she never entirely runs out. “For example, if I only have a thousand eye masks left, I’m going to need to put an order in because it’s going to take at least three to four months to receive those,” Crawley said.
The attention to detail and laser-sharp focus Crawley puts into every product can consume her workdays, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. In fact, she sees her buttoned-up product rollouts as one way she does business differently. “My biggest strength is my creativity, and I feel like that’s what sets me apart and that’s what sets my brand apart,” she said. “That’s something that you really can’t pay for.”
Of course, executing her creative ideas is only possible if Crawley stays tuned into her business’s finances using QuickBooks. “You want to make sure that you always have a cushion when having a small business, because usually you’re the only person that you can fall back on, so the stakes are pretty high,” she said. As long as she stays on top of her cash flow and inventory, Crawley can keep doing what she does best: creating products that fit her unique vision. “I’m just always following my intuition and my gut as an entrepreneur and as a creative,” she said. “I just do what I feel is right, not necessarily what other people are telling me.”
*Intuit is a technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by our partner, Green Dot Bank, Member FDIC.