We were lucky to catch up with Erin Schmidt recently and have shared our conversation below.

Erin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

I first launched my company Bella Vida Santa Barbara Luxury Skincare five years ago on April 4th, 2019. I got the idea from a course I was taking with other founders and my stepdaughter who is an Esthetician. I gained as much knowledge as I could, researched the current trends in Skincare, which included Activated charcoal at the time. My first product I launched was a Blueberry coco charcoal mask. It was a hit and my customers still love this mask, After four years of being in business, I decided to expand the company and created a magazine, Bella Vida Magazine, and launched the first debut issue myself in December, 2023. Since then it has grown very rapidly into an international magazine featuring stars, highly luxurious brands and our next issue has Massiel Taveras, Miss Universe from Dominican Republic. It has been a whirlwind and we are just getting started!
The magazine has launched incredible new partnerships and opportunities for the skincare and much more with the conglomerate we created, Bella Vida Global.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have been a serial ecommerce entrepreneur since Ebay first started. I began a Vintage and Modern clothing store on Ebay myself and got a lot of sales, but was working full time and then had a baby, so I didn’t have time to run it. I created and launched four other ecommerce fashion sites, but lost my passion for those projects.

When I launched Bella Vida Santa Barbara Luxury Skincare, I was determined from the beginning that I would keep going no matter what. I have a long-term vision for what I am creating and have worked to have patience and persistence through challenges so I don’t quit, I just take a break, pull back, regroup and have even redesigned and relaunched my packaging and branding in 2023. I went for a much more luxurious black and gold look, with clean, very luxurious formulas and it has been very well received. I even became an Organic Skincare Formulator so I could reformulate all of my formulas to be more effective, clean and unique in the Luxury Skincare market.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Luckily I started my business, Bella Vida Santa Barbara around a year before COVID hit, so I had a customer base that was loyal. I found that my business started to boom in the middle of COVID, but then I started to have serious packaging woes. I had been sourcing my glass jars and bottles from Italy, which got hit very hard by shutdowns early in the pandemic, so transit times and prices went up a great deal, causing my business to have to deal with major issues.

I tried to find better packaging and had several that were far less luxurious than my customers were used to because of the issues, which I sincerely communicated to them how sorry we were and we were trying our best to figure out the issues caused by shutdowns. Most of my Customers were very understanding and remained loyal, thankfully. But then the economy slowed and sales dipped. After getting tremendously frustrated with all the packaging issues, I decided if I was going to have to source new packaging, I might as well invest in redesigning the branding to a much more luxurious black and gold look as well after 4 years.

This was a much larger undertaking that took around 6 months to complete as I had 15 SKU’s to redesign and get all new screen-printed bottles, jars and outer cartons all with gold foil. I had to then search long and hard for the right packaging suppliers and negotiate with them on pricing and MOQ. I was lucky that I had companies willing to work with me on a smaller MOQ since I had 15 designs to get printed and I was able to do an initial order of 100 units each instead of 1000 units. Once I relaunched the new look, all of my current customers remarked with “Wow!” They were so impressed with how luxurious and gorgeous the branding was they were very supportive and excited. So it was truly worth it!

What I have learned in the game of entrepreneurship is that those that can withstand the major setbacks, challenges and despair that can come when things go awry. And trust me, they will in every business. It takes a willingness to step back and accept what is happening, then force yourself to grow, change, learn and seek help from others. Taking negative feedback and criticism as a challenge to grow and become better is also incredibly important as a leader and founder. No criticism should be taken as a defeat but as a learning opportunity. Don’t take it personally, just use that to fuel your growth.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

After the debut issue launch, which was only 12 pages long, was very well received, I decided to make it a full magazine featuring cover stories, articles and selling ad space. My business partners jumped on the idea as they all have extensive contacts in retail and celebrities who wanted to be featured.

We have gotten rave reviews from Issue 1, which featured Charis Michelsen on the cover and are launching Issue 2 of Bella Vida Magazine as we celebrate our five year anniversary of Bella Vida Santa Barbara with some incredible features inside, including the sensational Hollywood premiere of “Monkey Man” featuring Dev Patel. It has been a wild ride so far and it is only getting better.

While I am still excited about my skincare business; this pivot has brought so many new and exciting opportunities to the table that I seriously never anticipated or dreamed of. People sometimes think of having to pivot as a negative thing, but it is proving to be one of the best decisions I could have ever made for my company and life.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bellavidamagazine.com and www.bellavidasb.com
• Instagram: @bellavidasb and @bellavidamagazine
• Facebook: @bellavidasb
• Twitter: @bellavidasb