“All good stories start with your grandmother,” Jenefer Palmer, founder of the Malibu-based skin and body care brand. I MEANshows entrepreneur. The story of how she BUsINEss it started with her grandmother, who turned to the ocean to heal after an accident left her bedridden with a torn ligament in her leg. After dreaming that “the ocean and seaweed would heal her,” Jenefer's grandmother asked her husband to take her to the beach near her home in Beechhurst, New York, every day. She saw improvements in her condition in just a few months, Jenefer says, and her daily swim became a lifelong habit.
Image Credit: Courtesy of OSEA. Jenefer Palmer, left; Melissa Palmer, right.
“So I grew up with this deep understanding that the ocean is a source of healing,” Jenefer explains. “It influenced me when, in the early 80s, I became a spa director and I was looking for wellness-based products – because that's always been my thing. fOCUS. That's how I grew up.”
Jenefer couldn't find products with “good, marine-based” ingredients. So “out of necessity,” she launched her OSEA line—pronounced Ooh-sea-yah, the letters representing the “essential elements of well-being”: ocean, sun, earth, and atmosphere—in 1996. OSEA's skin care i packed with seaweed prioritizes “naturally derived”, scientifically backed ingredients. The business chose him, adds Jenefer.
“Every day (I can) pass on all the wisdom of the women in my family, which is a tremendous honor.”
The business also picked up her then-teenage daughter, Melissa Palmer. In the early days, Melissa helped her mother create QuickBooks for the new company, and she has remained involved ever since (with a brief departure to focus on a hula hoop venture), serving as OSEA's CEO today . “Every day (I get to) pass on all the wisdom of the women in my family, which is an incredible honor and opportunity,” says Melissa.
OSEA started in the Palmers' living room and then moved to their garage, as the mother-daughter team did everything for the business for the first 12 years: shipping, packaging and sales. OSEA's products were sold almost exclusively to hotels and spas.
Melissa calls her mother “a visionary” when it comes to the brand's ingredients and product efficacy, and Jenefer points out that her daughter has “a tremendous business mind,” adept at communicating company message and incorporating wellness into every aspect of it – complementary strengths that have helped OSEA enjoy nearly three decades of profitable growth.
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“Our product has been the same since the 90s. It took a while for the market to catch up.”
“Our product has been the same since the '90s,” says Melissa. “It took a while for the market to catch up to us. When we launched, it wasn't even called 'pure beauty.' We were definitely the fringe kind of weirdo talking about natural and durable packaging and products, and we were explaining the choice why.”
Some of the products launched in the 90s remain on OSEA's top 10 best sellers list today. What's more, the company's glass bottles and packaging are also the same as they were at launch – details that people once objected to but now love, says Jenefer. Although OSEA's slow and steady approach to gROWTH has paid off over the decades (allowing it to become “a 25-year overnight success,” quips Melissa), the company has employed a more aggressive growth strategy in recent years.
When Melissa's hula hoop “obsession” led her to start her own hula hoop business, she experienced firsthand the power of directly to the consumer (DTC) and social media marketing. Thus, it returned to OSEA in 2016 and “started” its next phase of growth. Over the past eight years, the company has grown 7,600% and expanded into retailers including Ulta and Blue Mercury to a combined 3,000 stores, striking an “equal split” between DTC and retail, Melissa says. Some of the famous fans of OSEA include Victoria BeckhamSophia Bush, Brie Larson and Kelly Ripa.
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“I've really learned what the word 'omnichannel' means.”
“I really learned what the word is 'whole channel' means,” says Melissa. Gone are the days when the mother-daughter duo did it all: OSEA boasts a team of 80 now.
Of course, there have been some obstacles on the way to more rapid growth. “One of the biggest challenges I faced over the last five years was the fact that the company was growing so fast (and) was built on systems that started in the '90s. (We) had to move so many of our processes , production to keep up with growth,” says Melissa. She notes that it was challenging to see competitors come in large quantities CAPITAL because OSEA didn't start operating until three years ago, when the company “did a little increase to have one more cushion.”
OSEA has an ambitious international expansion plan, including entering Australia and New Zealand later this year with Mecca Cosmetics, says Melissa. Additionally, the Palmers are excited to focus more on OSEA brand awarenessmarketing and growing community they've built as the company enters its third decade in business.
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“There's a lot of trust and freedom with each other and with what we're doing.”
They also look forward to the ongoing rewards that come with them family run business.
“You bring this being into the world,” says Jenefer, “and you love and raise your children, and then they leave you. And that's what you want them to do. You want your children to grow up and have autonomy. I have the privilege of actually seeing Melissa in the world every day, not just when she comes home for Thanksgiving, (but) I get to see her as a dynamic, incredible, powerful businesswoman — it's just a such a beautiful thing.”
Melissa notes that the mother-daughter relationship allows them business partnership in OSEA to thrive.
“There's a lot of trust and freedom with each other and with what we're doing,” she says. “We both understand each other completely and understand each other's strengths enough to have total freedom. It's the ultimate complement of skills and balance as a team. It would have been hard for me to let anyone else to take risks (we have taken )”
This article is part of our continuity Women Entrepreneurs® series highlighting the stories, challenges and triumphs of running a business as a woman.