In 2005, the trajectory of Holly Thaggard's life completely changed when a good friend of hers was diagnosed with skin cancer. Holly realized that most people weren't taking sunscreen seriously, so she sidelined her vocation as a harpist to dive headfirst into the unfamiliar world of SPF. After a false start trying to market her sunscreen to elementary schools, Holly pivoted to retail, hiring a publicist she could barely afford. She eventually got her products into Sephora, a success that helped turn Supergoop! into a multi-million dollar brand.




This episode was produced by James Delahoussaye, with music by Ramtin Arablouei.

It was edited by Neva Grant.




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So, you know, we ask a lot of our guests on How I Built This about the moment, you know, when did they have an idea for something big or when did they know they had the talent to rise to the top?

Well recently I talked about this with Bjork who told me about the time when she first understood that she had a unique singing voice.

She was a kid in a pretty remote town in Iceland and she'd sing at the top of her lungs walking in the woods on her way to school.

But it took her a long time to convince herself that it was a voice to be shared with the world.

Check out my conversation with Bjork on my other podcast, it's called The Great Creators.

Just search for The Great Creators with Guy Raz wherever you listen to podcasts, or go to thegreatcreators.com.

And this week, we're rerunning an interview from 2020 with Holly Thagard, who set out to create a sunscreen that people would actually want to slather on their faces every day.

I had created these sunscreen swipes and apparently the swipes were a huge hit.

So I would go around to stores during that period, and the swipes were always gone.

But the problem was, I knew that my sales couldn't be great if there were no products on the shelf.

And so I'd go into as many stores as I could with swipes in my bag and literally like stock the shelves like I'd give them product which is crazy right?

Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Holly Thagard decided that sunscreen should be used every day and at every time of year, and how that idea grew into the multimillion dollar brand Supergoop.

There's a concept in business known as product-market fit.

It was popularized by the well-known Silicon Valley venture capitalist Andy Ratcliffe.

If there's a market fit, people will buy it.

Sometimes there's no product market fit because the product solves a problem that no 1 really has.

Did someone really think there was a market for Cheetos lip balm?

At other times, there's no product-market fit because the idea comes too early, before people are ready.

Like Pets.com, which fizzled out in 2001.

But a decade later, Chewy.com, which basically does the same thing, took off and is now valued at more than $10 billion.

But not having an exact product market fit doesn't necessarily mean your idea is doomed to fail.

There was no market for those ideas at first.

It took those companies a lot of time to convince consumers that it wasn't weird sleeping at a random person's house or hopping in their car.

Airbnb and Lyft had to create the market for what they offered.

And it's kind of the same story for Holly Thagard and Supergoop.

The vast majority of people think of sunscreen as something you use at the beach, or you slather on small children before they go outdoors.

But Holly wanted to convince people that they needed to use sunscreen every day, all the time, year-round, like getting dressed or brushing your teeth or taking vitamins.

Her whole plan was to work with educators to create awareness around skin cancer, something thousands of people are diagnosed with in the US alone every single day.

And Holly's business model would be based on selling giant sunscreen dispensers, kinda like those hand sanitizer dispensers, to schools.

But as you will hear, that whole business model was doomed from the start, and not just because there was no product-market fit.

So Holly had to pivot and completely rethink her idea of how to get people to use sunscreen every day, and in the process, had to basically build out a market for her product.

Although her mission is still very much a work in progress, Supergoop is now 1 of the top-rated sunscreens on the market.

The company did about $40 million in revenue in 2018 and became profitable last year.

And as I often say when introducing the story of a founder, nothing about Holly's early life in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, hinted at the career she would ultimately choose, except for 1 important thing.

Her dad ran a machinery business, and her mom was an accomplished portrait painter.

Yeah, she and my maternal grandmother, even her mother, they were both amazing artists.

And I watched my mother's career go from, when I was younger, she created a custom handbag brand that Neiman Marcus could not keep in stock, all hand-painted and monogrammed, and she went on, ultimately, to paint portraits, senators and judges,

I feel fortunate to have her as a mother because I have portraits now of my children and I didn't have to pay for them.

And so I guess as a kid, like as a little girl, you took up the harp.

I did, but I'd even back up a little bit to that as I started on the piano.

Gosh, I started in, I think, second grade.

By the time I got to fifth grade I saw this bright shiny gold harp that I didn't didn't see anywhere other than my grandmother's living room and and I thought gosh if I could switch gears and play the harp it would you know there's not a lot of competition.

You could be the best harpist because there are, right, there probably weren't that many around you.

Yeah, and everything sounds beautiful on the harp.

Yeah, by the way, as a, you know, a fifth grader or sixth grader, how did you carry the harp?

It has a dolly and you learn how to handle it.

It's not so much that it's heavy as that it has so many moving parts.

But you were not bringing the harp onto the school bus.

No, no, and in fact, I played at home and then for the talent shows of course I'd show up but it wasn't really until high school that I began getting really excited about the harp because I saw it more as a business and The idea of creating a business around Holly the Harpist was exciting to me.

Wow, wait, so you, as you sort of got better at the harp, you thought, hey, this could be my business?

Like, you were thinking this in high school?

I was actually already working on the weekends and every Sunday for brunch at the local country club.

Like in the dining room, you would just be in the corner playing the harp?

Be Holly the Harpist and I could kind of set my price because there wasn't a lot of competition.

So I really started out playing for like $100 an hour, which was a lot when you're in ninth grade.

All right, so you are Holly the Harpist, playing harp for money, which is awesome.

And you decided to go to school at Louisiana State University which is not that too far from from where you live I guess yeah and what did you did you study music there

yes I did so I was never really that great of a student I I spent those first 2 years in college studying music.

I totally did not fit in with anyone in the music school.

I realized how serious the musicians were in college and I was more interested in doing what I was already doing, which was performing and playing.

And I was at the time, you know, still getting jobs in New Orleans at the Museum of Art.

And I played a little backup for Aretha Franklin when she came through.

What did you, What did you play with Aretha Franklin?

I mean, if there ever is a song to play with Aretha Franklin, you wrote the harp, man.

And look, that makes me sound like I was this great harpist, but like I was so winging it.

I had no idea, but I knew I couldn't say no, and I had no business.

I literally had to break down every measure, and

I was that reading music type student, but you keep in mind, I enjoyed the business of Holly the Harpist way more than I enjoyed playing the harp.

So if you didn't enjoy playing the harp that much, what did you decide that you wanted to do professionally?

So I had also grown up, because I think I'm such an organized person, and I love pencils and supplies and things.

I grew up thinking that being a teacher would be really fun.

And I often, even when my little brother would get home from school, and keep in mind he was 7 years younger than I was, I would sort of start a new session in his room and get worksheets for him and pass out my sheets.

And so I thought, well, maybe I should be a teacher.

I read that you went on to study education and got your first teaching job, I think, in Baton Rouge.

So there was a private Episcopal school in Baton Rouge that was, actually I later learned, was quite difficult to get a job there as a first year out of college.

I poured my heart into doing everything that I had learned in college.

I also kind of looking back now I think I poured my heart into outdoing every other teacher in the school and kept my eye on trying to impress the board that had given me the opportunity to be there.

In fact, I still talk to those 17 students, many of them today.

But from what I've read you only you were only a teacher for a year.

I mean you had this you know promising career what why aren't you a teacher today?

Yeah so you know the end of the school year came when contracts are placed in the teachers boxes and I didn't receive 1

and the school said they were not offering me a return contract and I later learned as a first-year teacher you're considered provisional and they said you know this was due to problems and concerns that were brought up from my other peer teachers and not really fitting in well.

I did a lot of exploration at that moment, but I was devastated.

I had gone to college to be a third grade school teacher and here my career was seemingly ending very quickly.

And you never got any more specific feedback?

And I learned, you know, I was sort of breaking rules.

I wasn't eating lunch with the other teachers.

I wasn't hanging out in the teacher's lounge talking and connecting and and I If I was you know being completely honest with myself I did feel a little claustrophobic within the 4 walls of a classroom and They were in a way, right?

I did constantly look for ways to sort of leave campus early, or I'd say I had a hard job and double book myself.

But after a couple of months of exploring these these things I just decided I'm gonna move on.

Yeah I mean it is amazing though that setbacks can actually be a blessing that you don't you don't realize at the time right like a huge Like had you had this amazing year and they renewed your contract and you stayed there You might not have ever done what you did

I'm so grateful that that played out like it did because I don't think I would have been pushed to go and change directions.

I would have kept that cush job and, you know, that's not what was in the cards for my life's work.

Well, at the time my brother was starting college at SMU in Dallas and I had plenty of time on my hands so I went to help him move in the dorms and all I could do was look around at all the beautiful homes in Highland Park and how they all really needed Holly the harpist in their life.

So you decided to stay in Dallas after helping him move in?

Well, I knew that if I were going to propose a move to my parents that I needed to have a job lined up, So I actually, during that brief weekend visit, I walked over to the Dallas Country Club and knocked on the door of the general manager's office and introduced myself and told them all about my music and that I was hoping that they might look to have some new entertainment in their dining room.

And I went back, convinced my parents that I could make a living performing, and moved my harp to Dallas, found an apartment, and literally did the kind of back of the napkin math like how many hours a week do I need to play the harp to pay for the rent.

So you're like in your you know 22, 23 years old living in Dallas playing the harp and that's that becomes your business, Holly the Harpist?

So I went from Dallas Country Club to the Petroleum Club to Brook Hollow Golf Club, and made the same introduction.

And this is really when I realized that building this business of Holly the Harpist was when I lost all track of time and creating like direct mail pieces and looking into the book of lists.

I often would read the CEOs and write letters to their home.

I'm from the South, so writing letters has always been a big part of my upbringing and But I got a really good response from from just the jobs that I had and spent the next 10 years of my life actually performing and that's how I paid the rent.

You are the harpist of choice, or 1 of them, I guess, in Dallas, and probably making a decent living.

I had $1, 000 minimum for any party, which often, if a party was only an hour, that's a great

That's like a senior partner at a law firm in New York.

Right, I just wasn't billing the hours that a lawyer would bill.

You know, no, I was just dating in Dallas and until my late 20s.

Did I not meet my now husband and his very best closest friend in college, I performed.

I played the harp for many rehearsal dinners and weddings for their family.

And Mary Montgomery, the person I worked, that would engage me for these, said, you've got to meet my son's best friend.

And so that's how I met Ty, and we continued dating as I performed and played until I guess we were engaged when we were about

And so this is like what 2004-ish you got engaged around then?

But when Ty and I Started talking about a family and being married and everything, you know performing on Mother's Day and Christmas and Thanksgiving and Continuing on that path just felt like it was time to retire.

And it's exhausting playing evenings and that's not a real great life or having a family.

So you're kind of done with the harp side of your life.

You're newly married and I guess something happens in

which is a friend of yours is diagnosed with skin cancer.

And first of all, this is, I didn't know this, but this is like 1 of the most diagnosed form of cancer, you know, full stop.

When your friend was diagnosed, what was the prognosis?

Oh, and he's fine now, but you know, I started thinking, and a good college friend of mine was going through her residency in dermatology at the time, and I was talking with her about my friend's skin cancer and and you know she said Holly it's not about the beach it's it's about that every single day cumulative exposure that ultimately and usually much later in life becomes skin cancer but for your friend who has blonde hair and blue eyes and you know it happened at a much younger age.

It's not about going to the beach and not using sun lotion, suntan lotion, or sunblock, whatever.

It's just about being outside every day and over time some people develop skin cancer and and by the way most people who do develop skin cancer it is it's it's generally highly curable if it's caught you know relatively early it's like a yes

to hear this and and what and then you're thinking

well my initial thought was this could have just as easily have been me.

I have blonde hair and blue eyes and I remember, gosh, my spring break in my middle school years, I remember going to Florida and lying on the roof of this house we rented and I got so blistering sunburned that I was sick and swollen and it ruined my entire week.

But then I also immediately thought about my 17 kids that I taught that year in the classroom.

And never once did I see a tube of sunscreen on the school campus.

Despite the fact that the children were on the playground in the middle of the day, and often even staying in sports in the afternoon, no 1 was wearing sunscreen.

And to Be clear, the vast majority of us are not wearing sunscreen all the time, right?

This is 2005 and you start to think, what?

Like hey, Maybe I can figure out a way to get people to wear sunscreen all the time, not just at the beach.

Was that what you were thinking like immediately?

So I found this study by Memorial Sloan Kettering that was talking about how most People knew sunscreen prevents skin cancer, but I think it was like 70% don't wear it, just like you said, every single day.

And the number 1 reason was because it didn't feel good on the skin.

And I think just being a child of 2 entrepreneurs and always thinking about creating and building and researching.

I also think that I have always been a product person, which I think kind of goes back to being with my mother and often critiquing other art and talking about skin tones and colors and the composition of things being so important to the success of that.

And so I was thinking, why don't schools offer sunscreen?

Why don't children have access to sunscreen in schools?

And for me, I just took it to this extreme of like, gosh, we wouldn't send the kids on the playground without a fence around the playground.

But we're sending them out on the playground with a carcinogen above them.

So the original idea you had was, let me figure out how to get sunscreen into schools.

Like, you know, we've got like hand sanitizer dispensers.

Like you would have those around schools and that would essentially be your business.

Yes, and in part I also knew the importance of education around this and you know I was a teacher and you know it's not really a it wasn't a shortage of SPF products in the country that were causing the epidemic it was a lack of education around the importance of wearing SPF every single day.

So was your, this is 2005, was your idea to find an existing sunscreen brand and then just get schools to put that into their, like into the hallways?

Was that, or did you already from the beginning think, I'm going to make a sunscreen?

Well so the first step was to, what is out there?

And I really wanted to look, I did not grow up wearing sunscreen every single day, so I was thinking, what is that product that I should have been wearing?

And so I looked on the market and like you said, in 2005, SPF was an incredibly sleepy category and it was owned by the mass channels of distribution like Walgreens and Target and Walmart.

And what I found was that SPF was being promoted and marketed as an incredibly seasonal thing and you couldn't actually even find SPF outside of May, June or July.

And when I did find it I looked at the ingredients and found that 90% of what was on the market was just full of very controversial ingredients.

Well, so 1 of those that was often spotlighted was the ingredient oxybenzone, which was being found in breast cancer tissue.

And what I also found is that every single chemical formula in the country relied on oxybenzone for its efficacy.

Well, so there were 2 types of formulas there were the chemical formulas which are those that absorb easily into the skin and they're great for athletes and then there's mineral formulas

and the mineral formulas just to be clear there's ones that are like really white on your skin like like the zinc sort of sticks and stuff.

They feel real thick and pasty on the skin.

And essentially, you couldn't rub in the natural ones into your skin, and you're thinking, hey, why isn't there a natural 1 that can do that?

Yes, I felt like there was such an opportunity to do both chemical formulas, which there are advantages to in a clean and healthy way, and mineral formulas I felt needed an upgrade too because they didn't need to feel so thick and pasty because if there were options for people to wear sunscreen every single day that were beautiful and luxurious and felt great, then that would be that first step closer to stopping skin cancer.

right, I'm thinking, if I'm you, it's 2005, 2006, and I'm starting to kind of, you know, it sounds like you're kind of following this idea and thinking there might be something there, and you're obviously learning as much as you can about sunscreen, but when I've read the backs of like comparative brands that I think are pretty great, I don't understand any of the words.

Were you reading, weren't you like looking at the backs of sunscreen bottles and like, what is this and what, like, did you even know what those things were?

No, it was a lot of research, a lot of exploring.

I found that there was a national sunscreen symposium and I reached out to every chemist that was speaking at that event and I just picked everybody's brain and just became obsessed with learning.

You called them or you emailed them and asked them what?

You said, I'm Holly and I'm starting a sunscreen brand.

Well, fortunately for me, the chemists, all the response was very kind to me and they taught me so much about ingredient decks and most of those chemists were not up

The challenge that I gave was, I'm interested in creating an SPF product that does not have oxybenzone, does not rely on parabens, propylene glycol, a handful of other ingredients that I just wasn't that fond of.

And most of what I heard was it can't be done.

They were saying you can't make a sunscreen that is non-chemical that can be rubbed into skin?

They were saying that you can't make a sunscreen that will test to a high efficacious SPF number without the use of oxybenzone.

And without the preservative system of a paraben, which is what keeps your product healthy and clean, it couldn't be done.

I had no idea that sunscreen was so complex.

Well, I think what is so complicated is not necessarily having an efficacious sunscreen.

It's limiting yourself to a certain set of ingredients and then making it aesthetically so pleasing that it would make Guy Raz want to pick it up and put it on his skin every single day.

See all How I Built This with Guy Raz transcripts on Applepodcasts

Supergoop!: Holly Thaggard (2020)