From Adam Bryant, The New York Times:
The NY Times interviews successful entrepreneur and natural product beauty maven Lisa Price, founder of Carol’s Daughter, on the lessons she’s learned as a business owner and advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Lisa Price: In the beginning, I did everything. And then, as I started to add people to help me, a lot of them were family members or friends who were like family. So there wasn’t really a need to have a specific management style, per se.
But when the business changed and started to grow, we had to bring in people with more experience. For the past four or five years, I’ve been watching people who have that experience come in and bring their knowledge to us. In the beginning, you feel like they know everything. And then you find out they really don’t, and common sense makes more sense than what they’re saying sometimes.
So I sit at the table, but not necessarily at the head of the table. I feel like I’m the person in the room who’s maintaining everything. The players change, but the story stays the same. The way the company was founded stays the same. What I believe in stays the same.
So I need to be at the table to make sure that integrity stays, but I don’t need to sit at the head of the table and drive the conversation, because I may not necessarily drive it to the place that makes it profitable and makes it relevant. So I’m going to listen, but I know that I can interject if they go off track.
Continue to the full article at The New York Times.