We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Juliana Kuzminova a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Juliana, appreciate you joining us today. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I came to New York City with my family in 1994 from Uzbekistan, in the former Soviet Union, when I was 11 years old. Since then, I have been living in NY. My holistic and spiritual journey began in 2008, inspired by my own health challenges, that led me to turn to clean beauty and motivated me to apply my knowledge of the healing nature of plants and my biotech experience of many years to research and develop high performance, organic, natural products.

At the time I was living in NYC, working full time in biotech industry and enrolled full time in a master’s program. I was dealing with pain and inflammation due to stress and my lifestyle choices. Western medicine offered pain management but no cure for my pain, and this encouraged me to take control of my health and make major lifestyle changes in pursuit of healing my body. I made changes to my diet and the products I used. Back then I did not find organic skincare brands that were luxurious, and I decided to make my own products. I wanted to create products of high quality and no filler ingredients that I would often find in other products. I completed my certification in Anti-Aging Skincare Formulation and Certification in Organic Skincare from Formula Botanica and this knowledge set me on a path to create the most luxurious and effective products for myself that I could fathom. I packed my products with organic, high performance, plant-based ingredients to improve the skin’s appearance and health. I also wanted to ensure that the products are uplifting to my inner being with exquisite essential oils that would stimulate sacral and heart chakras and thus have a beneficial effect on creativity, self-esteem, intuition, self-love and sexuality to bring out beauty within. I also infused the serum with 24k gold for its benefits for skin and luxurious look and feel.

I shared my products with my friends and family first and they loved them as much as I did and encouraged me to start selling them. frecklefarm organics was born in 2011 from that passion for natural beauty and spiritual alchemy.

When using my products it felt as if I’m performing a ceremony to honor my body and spirit and I rekindled the love for myself, including my freckles that I always wanted to remove. Hence, I named my brand frecklefarm organics intending to share my products that would inspire women to love their individuality, and not only to look great but to feel great as well.

I started to sell my products on Etsy first and did several craft fairs and events as I continued to work full time consulting in biotech industry to raise money for my business. The brand organically grew over time. Eventually I closed my Etsy store to have my own online store and several other stores started to carry our products. Now our products are sold in several parts of the world, and we plan to continue to expand.

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

There were several moments where I had to pivot both in life and business. So far the biggest pivot of my life was switching my career path from working in corporate, biotech industry to being my own boss in an industry that I was learning. This change came with many other life changes. At the time, I was in my early 20s and facing health challenges that forced me to change my diet, the products I used and my party lifestyle. When I started to take better care of my body, everything improved, and my mind was clearer to decide what I should do with my life next.

Another time I had to pivot was once I started the skincare business. It’s important to stay flexible in the beginning stages of starting a business in an industry that you are learning to determine what works. One of those moments was when I realized that one of our product’s names was trademarked by another brand and we had to rethink our strategy for product names, reprint labels for all our products, and reshoot photos for all our products. At the time this seemed like a disaster, but we pivoted our approach and continued to be resilient.

Another such moment is when my right hand in business and best friend, and my biggest fan Natalie Alkanovich, passed away. We always talked about going to fabulous events together to sell our products and we had so much fun together at the events we did together. This was during the pandemic and the pandemic in itself had a lot of reasons to pivot. But when I lost my right hand in business and the biggest fan it took time to recover, realign my responsibilities as she took on social media and marketing, and to be able to find excitement for the business and life in general. With time, the universe sent me signs that I should continue the business and I listened.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I think the biggest advocate for our brand is our products and their results. Our best strategy for organic growth is collaborating with clean beauty influencers who can share their honest review of our products. This gets the word out, and this is how our reputation in clean beauty has grown over the years.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ff-o.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/frecklefarmorganics
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/frecklefarmorganics/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/frecklefarm-organics

Image Credits
Kenzie Rich; Pro Photo Studio; Natalia Jhete;