Appropriately, the idea to launch Jolie, a filtered showerhead brand, came to Jolie’s Co-Founder and CEO Ryan Babenzien in the form of a shower thought. But his mid-shower epiphany wasn’t to simply start manufacturing showerheads—it was to position them as a beauty and wellness tool and turn Jolie into what Babenzien refers to as “step zero” in consumers’ beauty routines. 

“The beauty industry at large has focused on things they can put in a tube or a jar to fix a litany of issues, whether it’s dandruff or eczema,” said Babenzien in an episode of the Ad Age Marketer’s Brief podcast. “Fortunately for Jolie, they overlooked the source of what was causing many of those issues, which is the water.”

Identifying that white space in the beauty market has allowed Babenzien and Arjan Singh, the brand’s co-founder and head of brand marketing and operations, to grow Jolie into an eight-figure beauty brand in just two years. Jolie generated more than $28 million in revenue in 2023, according to the brand—compared to $4 million in 2022, its first year in business. Since launch, Jolie has sold more than 250,000 filtered showerheads, each retailing for roughly $165. And that’s all with a team of just four full-time employees, including Babenzien, who named the brand after his wife, Jolie.

Jolie began as a purely direct-to-consumer brand, and much of its business continues to stem from DTC sales—but its showerheads have since made their way onto the shelves of upscale retailers, including Anthropologie and Erewhon. 

Babenzien, who also founded DTC footwear brand Greats before selling it to Steve Madden in 2019, attributes much of Jolie’s rapid growth to user-generated content from both influencers and ordinary consumers discussing the improvements Jolie showerheads have made to their skin and hair. “We want advocates—customers—to be our loudest voice in our marketing channel,” he said in the podcast interview. Since Jolie’s launch, the brand has collected more than 25,000 pieces of UGC across social media and shared many of those posts on its own channels. 

Jolie has also supplemented its UGC-focused digital marketing with savvy out-of-home marketing campaigns. Last year, the brand deployed a fleet of delivery trucks in the New York metro area emblazoned with a large graphic of mud with the words “What if we told you your shower water is dirtier than this truck?” scrawled into it. Those mobile billboards inspired additional UGC, appearing across hundreds of social media posts—and Jolie is gearing up to bring the mud-covered trucks to additional cities in the last few months of 2024. 

Which entrepreneur do you admire the most and why?

There are so many great entrepreneurs, but I think entrepreneurs who solve big problems for consumers are the type of entrepreneurs I admire.

What’s currently on your bedside reading list?

Actually, nothing. I don’t read while going to bed—I have eye shades. Fortunately, I have always been able to fall asleep fairly quickly, so no TV and no books. 

What is the best career advice you’ve gotten?

Hire great people. This seems obvious, but it’s so often done poorly. Hiring great people does not necessarily mean to hire people who went to the best school or worked at the company of the moment. The clubbiness of startup land is not something that I pay much attention to. Hiring great people for what your business needs and hiring them at the right time is something we can all benefit from.

Name one brand, other than the one you work for, that you admire.

Aesop is definitely a brand that comes to mind. My wife, Jolie, actually used to be a marketing exec there, but we were both fans of the brand years before she started working there. To maintain true to their brand aesthetic, messaging and product for so long is a testament to a great brand.

What is your secret weapon for business success?

Learn how to say no. We’re often distracted with so many things that even good opportunities can be distracting if the timing is not right for the business. Jolie gets offered these opportunities all the time, whether it be a distribution offer or a brand partnership. But in my experience, trying to do everything well is impossible, and doing less but doing it better is our approach.