She Walked Away From the Dream Job Everyone Wanted to Build the Life She Actually Needed: How This Founder Built Saie Into a Cult Beauty Brand - Laney Crowell
Laney Crowell is the founder & CEO of Saie, a clean beauty brand dedicated to making high-performing products that are elevated, effortless, and always easy to use.
Laney’s path to entrepreneurship was anything but traditional. The daughter of a diplomat, Laney spent her childhood bouncing between continents, learning to adapt before she even knew the word for it. She began her career in entertainment, pivoted into editorial at ELLE and Lucky, and eventually found herself leading digital strategy at Estée Lauder – just as social media was transforming the beauty industry. But even with a dream job and a coveted title, something felt off.
While pregnant with her first daughter, Laney stepped away from corporate life to start a wellness blog called The Moment. She didn’t have a master plan – just a desire to create space for more real & honest conversations around beauty and wellbeing. That blog would spark an incredible community and eventually give birth to Saie, the clean beauty brand that’s now backed by Gwyneth Paltrow and Unilever Ventures, and leading a new wave of what beauty can look and feel like.
In today’s episode, Laney opens up about the real journey behind the brand: how she built Saie without industry connections or startup experience, the moments she almost gave up, and why learning to trust her gut was the best business strategy she never planned. We talk about persistence, resilience, the unglamorous side of fundraising, and the unexpected ways motherhood reshaped her leadership—and her mission. If you’ve ever felt like the outsider in the room, or you’re dreaming of building something meaningful on your own terms, this episode is for you.
In this episode, we’ll talk to Laney about:
* What “perfectionism” looks like for Laney. [02:26]
* How Laney’s childhood shaped her comfort with discomfort. [04:37]
* Struggling to fit into corporate culture. [06:40]
* Breaking into the editorial world. [08:37]
* Working at Estée Lauder and finding expanders. [11:11]
* Launching her blog and building community. [13:19]
* The inspiration behind founding Saie. [14:28]
* How past work experience prepared her for Saie. [17:09]
* Laney’s first experience with motherhood. [18:13]
* Early days of creating Saie. [19:09]
* Biggest lessons from fundraising. [20:40]
* Secured key investors including Unilever and Gwyneth Paltrow. [25:00]
* Developing Saie’s first product. [28:00]
* How building Saie changed Laney as a person. [31:07]
* How motherhood made her a stronger businesswoman. [35:40]
* Awareness as a key driver of Saie’s growth. [39:30]
* The power of trusting her team to lead and grow. [43:09]
This episode is brought to you by beeya:
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Follow Laney:
* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laney/
* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saiebeauty/
* Website: https://saiehello.com/
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Behind Her Empire
Behind Her Empire is focused on highlighting self-made women leaders & entrepreneurs and how they tackle their career, money, family and life.
Each episode covers their unique journey and what it really takes to build an empire with key lessons learned along the way. The goal of the series is to empower you to see what’s possible & inspire you to create financial freedom in your own life.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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- Latest episode: 2025-06-02
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