I Used to Go to Conferences Looking for Answers

This time, I realized I had already built some of them.

There was a moment at CultureCon that probably looked insignificant to everyone else in the room.

I was sitting in the beauty and fashion conversation, listening to Darrell talk about men and skincare. He mentioned that men want skincare too, but often don’t have the language to explain what they need or even know what to ask for.

And I remember thinking, Wait. I built that.

Not in the someday, scribbled in a notebook, I should build that kind of way. I had already built it.

That realization stayed with me because this time, going to a conference felt different.

I’ve spent years walking into rooms looking for information. I wanted to understand how people built companies, created communities, landed partnerships, developed technology, and turned an idea into something people actually wanted. When I went to my first Create & Cultivate conference in 2017, I remember looking around and thinking about how incredible it would be to build something of my own that brought people together like that.

There was a lot of dreaming in those rooms.

This time I realized I wasn’t walking around CultureCon as someone trying to figure out whether I had an idea worth building. I was walking around as a founder looking for where the things I have already built belong.

That is a very different way to enter a room.

When Darrell the founder of Crowned Skin talked about men not having the language for skincare, I immediately thought about the Signature Glam Test and Char. So much of what I’ve learned from working in beauty for years is that people frequently know how they want to feel, but they don’t necessarily have the beauty vocabulary to communicate it.

I’ve watched clients pull out Pinterest pictures because they couldn’t explain what they wanted. I’ve watched people stand in front of beauty counters overwhelmed by products they don’t understand. I’ve watched people assume beauty isn’t for them because the language, marketing, or experience never really included them.

That is part of why I created Signature Glam.

The test gives someone a way into the conversation by starting with who they are rather than expecting them to already understand beauty terminology. Char takes that further by becoming a beauty concierge that can help translate those preferences into products, routines, and language someone can actually use.

So when I heard the problem being discussed onstage, my instinct wasn’t to take another note about an opportunity in the market.

It was to get up and show someone the solution.

I found Darrell and showed him what I had built.

That moment probably meant more to me than he realized.

Because I think there comes a point in building when you stop looking at every conference, panel or conversation as a place where someone is going to tell you what your business should become. You start listening differently. You hear problems and recognize where your work fits. You hear someone describe a gap and realize you’ve already been working on it. You meet someone and instead of thinking, I hope they understand my idea, you can pull out your phone and say, Let me show you.

I felt the same shift when I thought about The Grey Method.

“The Grey Method” came from another problem I actually experienced: having too many ideas, responsibilities, conversations, and pieces of information living everywhere while trying to build a company. I didn’t need AI to become the expert on my business. I needed a way to organize what I already knew so I could think more clearly and actually move.

That is what I keep coming back to with technology.

I’m not particularly interested in creating technology simply because technology is the conversation everyone is having. I’m interested in the moments when technology can make something that already matters to people easier to understand, easier to access or easier to act on.

Signature Glam helps translate identity and preference into beauty language. Char helps turn that understanding into guidance. The Grey Method helps turn scattered thinking into structure. The Beauty Layer asks what happens when beauty itself becomes easier to access because it is built into the places where people are already living, traveling, gathering and getting ready.

Different products. Different problems.

But underneath all of them is the same question I seem to keep asking:

Did we consider the person using it?

That question has started following me everywhere.

It followed me through CultureCon while I watched thousands of people move through an experience designed to give more people access. It followed me when only one person showed up for the Braindate session I had prepared for eight, and I had to let go of the experience I imagined and focus on making the experience valuable for the person sitting in front of me. It followed me through long lines, brand activations, and conversations with founders.

And it followed me when I heard a problem from a stage and realized I had something in my pocket that could help solve it.

There is still so much I am figuring out. Building the solution does not automatically mean you have figured out how to distribute it, scale it, fund it or get it into the hands of everyone who could use it. In some ways, those are the harder questions I’m walking into rooms with now.

But they are different questions.

I’m not asking, Can I build this?

I’m asking, How big can I build it? Where does it belong? Who should experience it? Who can help me scale it?

Maybe that is one of those quiet milestones nobody tells you to look for as a founder. There isn’t an announcement or a ribbon cutting. You just walk into a room one day, hear everyone talking about the problems they’re trying to solve and realize you’re not sitting there with only a dream anymore.

You brought something with you.

And now it’s time to show people what you built.

Want to know more about The Grey Method? Grab it on my connect page