Urban Skin Rx Founder Rachel Roff Launches Mentorship Program To Support Budding Entrepreneurs

Urban Skin Rx founder Rachel Roff knows firsthand the struggles a female founder faces when starting a business. To help address them, timed with International Women’s Day, she’s launching “For US, an RX for women in business,” a mentorship initiative featuring one-on-one sessions during which new entrepreneurs can commiserate with established ones. 

Established entrepreneurs participating in the initiative are Priscilla Tsai, founder and CEO at Cocokind, Tisha Thompson, founder and CEO at LYS Beauty, Allison Ellsworth, founder and chief brand officer at Poppi, Courtney Somer, founder and CEO at Lake & Skye, Erin Carpenter, founder and CEO at Nude Barre, Donda Mullis, co-founder and CMO at Raw Sugar Living, and Angela Ubias and Cary Lin, co-founders at Common Heir.

Female founders interested in the program can apply for consulting sessions via a Google form. They’ll be vetted and matched with established founders based on their areas of interest. The budding entrepreneurs chosen will receive a total of 90 minutes with mentor founders they’re matched with over two to three sessions. 

Melissa Palmieri, founder and president of public relations firm MP-IMC, also knows firsthand the obstacles female entrepreneurs encounter. She worked with Roff build the For US program to have maximum impact. “We wanted to introduce a program that would show a large ROI for aspiring women in business without producing a heavy lift for the mentors and their teams,” she says. “By strategically aligning on timing allocation and social sharing, we were able to attract the best women in business to participate alongside Rachel.” 

Today, Urban Skin Rx is available in over 10,000 retail doors, including Ulta Beauty, CVS and Target, but it hasn’t been an easy road to get there. Roff, a medical aesthetician and spa owner before starting the brand in 2010, is honest about hoping to assist entrepreneurs with steering clear of some of the painful—and expensive—errors she’s made in her nearly 20 years as a beauty founder. 

“I’m still suffering the consequences from poor packaging to the wrong retail strategy to too many SKUs to not going about funding the right way,” she shares. “It has been something I’m very hard on myself about, and it’s very therapeutic for me when I pass my learnings on to people.”

Thompson, formerly VP of marketing and innovation at Pür Cosmetics, launched LYS Beauty exclusively at Sephora in the midst of the pandemic in 2021, which she describes as the brand’s biggest hurdle as well as its biggest blessing. 

“It not only majorly impacted the supply chain, but also changed consumer behaviors from makeup use to purchasing patterns,” she says. “As a small business owner, I’m intimately involved in everything from product development to marketing, so making sure the brand is well-received, inventive, and offering a positive consumer experience was challenging because there’s only one me. I’ve found that building a strong, hungry, entrepreneurial team is paramount in early stages.” 

She adds that all of Lys Beauty’s watershed moments have been when the brand’s mission is front and center. “To anyone starting out, figure out what your driving force is and make it your mission to align that mission with your business decisions,” advises Thompson. “That is how you build a strong brand and subsequently a strong brand narrative. People get you when they see why you’re in it.’ 

Tsai, an investment banker-turned-beauty brand founder, remembers well the early days of building Cocokind with constrained resources. Established in 2014, the brand’s clean skincare and body care products are now in thousands of retail doors, including Whole Foods, Thrive Market and Ulta. Tsai stresses resilience and flexibility are crucial for new founders as it’s not always possible to execute plans how they’re originally envisioned. 

“I was working extremely long hours doing every possible function, connecting with our consumers, recruiting, managing, building, selling, marketing and even fixing printers,” she says, reflecting on the early days at the brand. “While bootstrapping this company hasn’t been a quick journey, our path has enabled us to continuously learn and grow while remaining dedicated to our values.” 

To Tsai, paying it forward through the For US initiative is important and meaningful. She says, “I’ve been doing this for a long time, so helping other women in business succeed or avoid mistakes I’ve made is something I’ll always try to make time for.”