Amy Gallant Sullivan is the co-creator of the Tear Film and Ocular Surface Society (TFOS) and founder of the new ocular health conscious beauty brand, Eyes Are The Story.
I had an absolute blast chatting with Amy about how she helped turn TFOS into the ultimate resource for ocular surface and dry eye across the world, how she approaches gender bias in the business world, and how she launched her new company during a global pandemic.
Connect with Amy:
Linkedin.com/in/amygallantsullivan/
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Amy Gallant Sullivan, Founder Of Eyes Are The Story
Thank you for taking the time to join me here to learn and grow. I am very excited for our guest joining us all the way from London, England. I wish I was there. Anybody who knows me knows I grew up there. She spends a lot of time in various cities. She is the Co-creator of TFOS and the Founder of Eyes Are The Story, a wellness-meets-beauty brand creating different products tailored around eye health. I'm excited to welcome and introduce Amy Gallant Sullivan. Amy, thank you so much for being on the show.
Thank you, Harbir. It's so nice to be with you and thank you for accommodating the time zone.
It’s my pleasure. We'll get to the whole London and Europe thing. One of the things that I loved about when I first introduced myself to you to reach out and to connect, one of the first things you said back to me is, “I'm not a clinician or a doctor.” Inside, I was like, “Perfect,” because anybody who knows me knows that I'm deliberately trying to get out of the bubble of eyecare professionals or health professionals and talk to people in business and entrepreneurship. That was a great way to introduce yourself to me but I was curious, how do you introduce yourself to people in general? We often describe ourselves by what we do. I would say, “I'm an optometrist.” How do you describe yourself?
It's amusing because I spent the first half of my life trying to escape from the medical field because my entire family is in the medical profession. I said, “I won't have anything to do with it.” I'm not going to say I was dragging, kicking and screaming but it was funny because no matter how much I tried not to be a part of it, it's part of my DNA so I had to work with doctors. I said, “Fine, let's do this.”
How do I introduce myself? Maybe you could consider me a misfit. I don't fit into a mold with anything. That has also encouraged me to start the companies that I have. I did once try to work in the corporate space with the cubes, the carpets, and those rules but I always had so many different ideas. I didn't fit into a box. I always had a different vision and desire and I was so fast and furious. I'm a misfit entrepreneur.
That's a cool title, misfit entrepreneur/ninja.
That's my name. One of my friends said it's interesting and intriguing because we launched TFOS right after 9/11. When there was a global economic downturn, I launched another foundation for art preservation fundraising. When everybody else was losing money, I launched a sponsorship program. During the pandemic, I launched another company. It fits into the misfit category because I don't follow the typical patterns, rules or cultural norms. I like to create things and when there's an unmet need, I like to make it happen.
With those three things that you described, those specific times in history, going against the grain is a term that's coming to mind. That's pretty amazing that you have the guts to pull that stuff off during those periods. How would you describe your journey then into entrepreneurship? You said your family and your background has a lot of medical professionals or you're surrounded by and dragged into that. Was it a straight line like, “I'm going to be an entrepreneur,” or was there something or a few things that happened along the way that made you want to go out and do your own thing?
The interesting thing is, especially with TFOS, when 9/11 happened, I was working for a normal company in the tech space. I was working with tech startups. That whole industry pretty much bottomed out at that time. My father came to me and he said, “Would you be willing to help me create a company?” I said, “That sounds like fun.” At that point, I had to interview for a new job and I said, “I don't want to work in a cube. I can't do that again. I did not fit into that box.”
He said, “While you're looking for a job, could you help me create this thing called the Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society,” which he had incorporated a couple of years before the idea. He had organized conferences and said, “We need to do something. We need to build an organization or a society and engage doctors, scientists, and industry from around the world. Because of your business background, your languages, would you be willing to help?”
I said, “I can create something.” There isn't anyone that's going to tell me, “You have to do it this way or that way.” My only rule was if I failed, I would disappoint my father and I would look like an idiot. I said, “Don't fail.” That's what got me into the entrepreneurial track because I was so excited to be able to create something at that stage at the beginning of my career. I had to prove not only to my family but also to the entire world that I could do it.
It didn't matter what my age was and that I was female. I said, “Prove yourself. Prove it. Do it.” From that point, I said, “Let's build and create. We have a vision. Let's make it happen.” That ignited the passion for creating things and saying, “Let's go for it.” You say it, put it out there and just do it. There aren't obstacles.
If you can make it happen, you make it happen. It resonates with me but I didn't think of it that way. As an entrepreneur, you're a creator almost in the terms of like an artist. You get a blank canvas and get to make what you want to make of it. The autonomy for sure was one thing that I remember appreciating. Being a self-employed person or business owner, I can't imagine myself being in the box and having to answer to a greater power.
We're going to get back to TFOS because that's something that's very intriguing. You split your time between a few different cities, Boston, London, Paris, and a few places in Italy. You speak multiple different languages. When did this all happen? When did you start traveling between these different cities? What takes you there? When did you learn the languages?
What's interesting is I moved a lot growing up with my family because of my father's studies and his multiple degrees so we happened to move a lot. I always thrived on change, new things, and meeting new people so I always made it a part of my personal culture. We were always changing and when I would go into new schools, I would also meet the other children who had moved a lot, and typically, they were from other countries. I was fascinated by their languages and cultures. From a very young age, I started picking up other languages. I speak a few and I'm always learning more.
Beauty Brand: Believe in yourself and bring people together that support your passion or energy, can add to your vision, and help you see your path.
Also, even with the TFOS side because we work with doctors all over the world. It's incredible because when travel is a little bit easier than it is at the moment, I have the opportunity to go to a lot of different places and I do make a point of trying to learn as much of the language as I can before I have meetings even as an icebreaker. I've always loved it. I graduated from university early and moved to Paris because why not? I wanted to study for a little bit longer. I'm an overachieving geek. I graduated early, moved to Paris, and it started from there.
I'm watching you on social media and navigating all these different things that you're doing. You're truly an entrepreneur and a CEO. What would you say are some important qualities that make a successful entrepreneur in your eyes?
First of all, it's important to believe in yourself and have ideas that you believe in. You have to be very structured. I say structured because I said that I don't fit into a box and I don't like structure. At the same time, I've had a virtual office since 2000. I thrive on the virtual structure if that makes any sense. For being an entrepreneur or CEO, it's important to be able to direct yourself, maintain yourself, have a vision, and follow-through. Also, surround yourself with people who can help you because you can't be an expert at everything. Even if you try, you won't be.
When we started TFOS, I asked my father, “Would you like me to take some classes so I can learn more about the anatomy of the eye, eye disease or something?” He said, “You know so many of the world's experts in ocular surface diseases. I can introduce you to people. We know people who know people. Focus on what you know and do what you know.” For me, it's always about the team. It's important as an entrepreneur and a CEO to build teams that can support you and help you achieve your idea or at least get you going in the right direction.
As one person, you cannot do everything, even if you try. I am an overachieving perfectionist, which is not a good thing at all, but I have a box of Wonder Woman band-aid on my back pocket so I'm like, “I'm going to fall flat and scrape my knees,” I just get up and make it happen. It's important to believe in yourself and be able to bring people together that support your passion or energy, can add to your vision, and help you see your path.
In the sense that they don't have the funding or the funds to create or build a team to pay people, how do you start there?
You just do it. I have lots of examples of that. I'm doing that now but with TFOS, I didn't have a salary at the beginning. It's like, “If you can raise a salary, you can get a salary.” It's important to find people who believe in what you're doing and incentivize them in other ways because if it's your company, you work for free. It's not 24/7. It's 28/7. You can't expect others to work for free because it's not their dream and vision.
What can you do to engage them and make them as passionate or at least energized so you can bring them along the path with you and then say, “I will you give you this and help you do that?” It's a team effort. Bootstrapping is part of it. It's the grassroots effort I used to do like canvassing for politics once upon a time. You can't do these things anymore but knock on the door, “Would you like to learn more about this candidate? Let me give you some information.”
It's the same thing whether you're going out to investors, doing sales, or what have you because people don't know who you are and why they should support you. People don't trust anybody else. How do you bootstrap? Start from the beginning, build a foundation, and bring the team together. There isn't an exact recipe but positive energy helps.
People are drawn to energy whether it's positive or some other vibration that gets them feeling, “This is worth being part of.” What would you say regarding raising capital, fundraising or getting people to invest? Is that something that you've spent a lot of time doing? Are there any real quick tips for somebody who might want to start doing that?
I've been doing that my entire life and it's not easy. There was someone from the TFOS industry who called me a pit bull. This is from a big company. He told me, “You are a pit bull. You walk into a room and people whip out their checkbooks.” With my screen name, Ninja, I go in for the kill. I have backup information and I won't back down until I get what I'm asking for. That is a tip. If you believe in what you're doing and what you are creating, and you can back it up with evidence and as much of all your blood, sweat and tears, if you can get someone to believe in that, you can typically raise the funds.
TFOS is different because it is a nonprofit like the foundation I have with the Vatican Museums. Those are nonprofits. It's very different from asking for a donation for a nonprofit than it is raising capital for a new venture. With Eyes Are The Story, it's a whole other game and it's not easy. I don't like to put it into this context but being female is very challenging raising capital for the company.
I don't want to turn it into that type of conversation but I've had a lot of investors tell me, “That's a cute idea but where's your private life? How are you going to balance that? Are you dedicated to this new company? You can’t work a lot.” I look at that and say, “I'm not asking you to find me a date. I'm asking you to fund my company and the private life has nothing to do with it.” It's interesting in terms of fundraising.
It wasn't a planned part of our conversation but if you're okay with it, I'm interested to go a little bit further into that. When I see somebody who is successful or ambitious, gender, race, and stuff like that gets completely blurred to me. I get intimidated just as equally by men and women. I get motivated by men and women equally. I find it interesting and unfortunate that that still happens. What would you say to other women who are in that position? What have you done to overcome that serious hurdle?
Don't back down. I don't like to say you have to fight but you have to prove yourself because it isn't just a numbers game. It's who you are as a person and what you've achieved elsewhere. I started out working in the international banking space with very powerful international businessmen. I was groomed in that area and I knew how to maneuver that. It's interesting fundraising now because I'm faced with the same men that I worked with at the beginning of my career. They're looking at me now as though they were looking at me when I first started my career. They said, “Who do you think you are? You're a little kid. Why should we write you a check for $1 million?”
I look at them and say, “You spent $1 million on the golf course because you lost a bet. $1 million is nothing.” When I'm going for, let's say, a $10 million raise, I know what I will have to do for that but it's interesting because it's cultural as well. There are women's groups out there that do fund female-founded startups and small businesses but they typically don't either fall into my category.
What's interesting is that when you have a concept that's addressing an unmet need that has not been done before, you can't say, “They did it this way. I'm doing it better. They did it that way and this is how I would change it.” Instead, you say, “I have this new idea and I want you to be a part of the story, so please write me a check.” They will look at it and say, “I don't understand.” How do you ask a male to invest money into, let's say, a beauty and wellness play? It sounds like, “How sweet. Why don't you have a bake sale?”
It's interesting because if you have an ophthalmic diagnostic, it's evident because you're like, “Let's collect a tear sample kind of thing,” but if it's an eyeliner, “What?” The fact that you bring them together, it’s like, “You understand the pharmacy and diagnostic space,” but then it's a beauty thing. It's an interesting play because it's not a golf game. How do you prove yourself? It's different because it's not something that men or women get. Women and men think you're supposed to have a bake sale so you're sitting there going, “I do that too.”
Often when we look at gender bias, we look at it as men looking at women in a certain way but women look at women, and often it's just as bad and that's even more unfortunate to me. That reminds me of the story of the brand Spanx. Sara Blakely is the founder and it sounds like a lot of what you're describing is what she has described in her story of starting that brand. People were like, “That's cute. I'll see you later.”
Eventually, you got to stick with it to get that one person convinced and roll with that. Thank you for those insights because it's one thing to hear somebody give a polished answer that they have practiced in some other interviews. Somebody like Sara Blakely, for example, has done a million interviews specifically talking about that story. Most answers are not so clear-cut black and white. A lot of them are like, “It's this or this.”
Beauty Brand: There is no exact recipe for bootstrapping, but positive energy helps.
I'm still fundraising. When I get to that level, I will say, “Harbir, we're going to have another interview and I'm going to tell you how I did it.” Right now, there isn't a recipe other than believing in yourself and don't back down. Sometimes you have to be a pit bull.
Maybe you can teach me how to be a pit bull. I need those lessons. We have already mentioned it many times but the Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society was originally founded by your father and co-created by yourself. You joined in the early 2000s to bring it to fruition. Can you tell me what your dad does and how he started it?
Dr. David Sullivan, my father is at Schepens Eye Research Institute and a lot of people know him as the dry eye guy. He has a PhD specializing in Ophthalmology, Endocrinology and Immunology. Otherwise known as the ménage à trois. That's a different presentation. When he was a graduate student at Dartmouth Medical School, I'll make the long story short without giving the whole TFOS presentation, he decided one day he wanted to bring together his international peers and colleagues and replicate a meeting that his supervisor at that time was doing in Bermuda.
That was how he started it. In 1992, he organized a conference in Bermuda. About 120 doctors from around the world came and the meeting started around 6:00 in the morning and went until around 10:00 at night because once again, overachieving geek runs in the family. It was in Bermuda. They never saw the beach. They didn't know where they were. They just knew they had a lot of work to do.
He did another one in 1996 in his laboratory. He doesn't have a conference management company. This was his idea. He indexed everything. This was when fax machines still happened. Fax machines were invented then. He was doing everything literally handwritten. In 2000, he incorporated the name Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society because he realized that organizing conferences are extraordinarily expensive. He said, “My great-great-grandchildren could be paying for this conference if it doesn't go well. How am I going to do this?”
That was one of the reasons why he decided to at least incorporate the name Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society. November of 2000 was when he organized that meeting. He organized these international conferences but there wasn't an actual name at all until he incorporated it in 2000. In that conference, everybody that attended was surveyed and asked, “Would you like to participate in a more formal organization? It isn't just a conference every four years but we could get together on a more regular basis and at least do something more than every four years. Show up.”
That was in November of 2000 and then in 2001, 9/11 happened. In November of 2001, my father asked me if I would be willing to help him create the society because he said, “Everybody wants it. I don't have time. I have a laboratory. Your background is in business. Could you help me create this?” We kicked off TFOS as it is known now in January of 2002 but there were many years of pre-plotting by my father. We created it into a beast.
No kidding, it's a beast. Anybody, even like me who is just getting into the dry eye space, not so heavily in it like some other colleagues of mine, but pretty much anybody who is even trying to get into the dry eye space needs to know TFOS and DEWS II. It's like the Bible now. You can't talk about dry eye without referencing DEWS II. It's what people use to reference, diagnose and treat. Most of the recommendations are coming from there and that is incredible. In a nutshell, how do you put something like that crazy together? Who do you have to bring into a room?
Crazy is a good word. The first one was the TFOS DEWS report that was published in 2007. The European Medicines Agency in fact did call it the Bible for dry eye. The industry was sharing it with their employees saying, “If you're in ocular surface, you have to read this Bible.” In 2017, we published TFOS DEWS II. It's the sequel. I say crazy is the perfect word for it because the whole venture was a multi-year production. It took almost three years to put the whole thing together. It took more than $2 million to fund the whole thing.
There were more than 150 specialists from around the world that participated and so many different subcommittees. The sex, gender and hormones subcommittee that my father was part of had over 1,000 pages of their initial references for that. Let's say the 424-page report was less than half of a DNA sample of what it started out to be. It was an insane undertaking because we had experts from around the world. It was not only redefining dry eye disease and re-establishing the importance of the fact that it's a disease and it’s quite omnipresent but also realizing that there's so much more work to be done.
Between 2007 to 2017, the ten-year window, the number of publications and clinical trials that were created because of this new education that was created and disseminated was phenomenal. We realized, "There's so much more that we don't know and we need to do." It's exciting and daunting simultaneously because there are specialists that focus just on the dry eye now.
TFOS itself isn't just dry eye. It's also an ocular surface disease. For example, our next workshop will be on what I like to call the lifestyle epidemic because the ocular surface disease is something that we bring on ourselves in many cases. It isn't just the iatrogenic dry eye but there are so many of the lifestyle choices that we do that are inadvertent in some cases and can compromise our vision, and cause or exacerbate OSD. That's our next workshop.
What's the timeline on that if you're allowed to say?
There's fundraising first so I look at it and say, “TFOS DEWS II cost us over $2 million to produce, disseminate, and do all that fun stuff.” We will try to make this workshop a little bit of a smaller production instead of having 150 experts and bring it down a little bit because it's not easy to have that many people involved in something. Hopefully, we will start that soon. I will be starting fundraising for that soon and then we will have more information available very soon at TearFilm.org. Sign up.
With DEWS, the first workshop, and DEWS II, you've laid such a huge foundation that maybe you don't have to tackle so many things all at once and focus on a more specific lifestyle. One of the other things that I know is the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know so you start to dig into all this other stuff.
To that point, even with the iatrogenic section of TFOS DEWS II, everybody realized, "There's so much more that we need to address." We thought about having the next workshop be iatrogenic dry eye and then we said, "Stop. It's not just iatrogenic." In fact, there is doctor-induced eye disease but in so many cases it's patient-induced. It's what are we doing to ourselves that will cause or exacerbate the ocular surface disease. It's growing into another beast because we realized there's so much more to it. It isn't just 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. There are a lot of subcommittees at this point.
You had the TFOS 2020 Conference. From the sounds of it, it was a huge success even given all the circumstances. As a virtual presentation, it sounds like it went well. Can you tell us how it went down and what went down during that conference?
In the TFOS 2020, it was so heartbreaking not to be able to gather everyone together in Northern Italy, by Lake Como.
I would love to go to Lake Como.
I'm like, “Can I have a party there?” We could have something to give everybody an excuse to come because it was a very special location. I didn't want to give that up, everyone was so excited to come, and we had spent more than three years planning that meeting. What we had also done was plan a pre-meeting to the meeting. That session was going to be a half-day session about addressing the unmet needs of ocular surface disease around the world.
In 2019 in Rome, we brought together the European ambassadors who gave presentations about the unmet needs in their respective countries. We thought that it would be fantastic if we bring several experts from around the world to address the unmet needs globally. This will also be a good teaser for what we are doing with our global ambassador program. I said, “We can't have the conference and the party but we have to do something because we want the excitement and the passion to keep going.” We want people to realize that there is so much more that needs to be done.
That was how we ended up creating the five-hour presentation in Rome. It was heartbreaking because we couldn't have everyone together in Northern Italy but it was also tremendous to be able to have some of the KOLs come to Rome in fact, because there were several of them that we're able to fly there and be present. We were able to do a live stream as well. We had the TV crew on-site in Rome. The doctors that were in Rome were present, and not breathing on each other. We had a live stream all over the world. It was nerve-racking but it was exciting.
How many people attended virtually?
We had about 2,000 registrations but we have also made the presentations available online for viewing afterward. We have had over 4,500 hits. We're asking people to share it because the presentations are about the unmet needs of ocular surface disease around the world. People can watch the presentations one by one. They don't have to watch the whole session because it was about five hours in total.
It's fantastic because you can go on for free, sign up, watch all of it, and get a snapshot of all the different areas that are necessary to address. It's good for the industry because they can see potentially how to address their products, some new product ideas or what have you. It's great for your colleagues too because you can see what others need in other parts of the world. It may give you some ideas or new treatment or diagnostics suggestions.
There are a lot of opportunities that are generated from that. It's important to keep sharing because it engages everyone even though we can't be together in person. TFOS has always been virtual in fact because we had about 40 different countries involved when we first launched, but now we have doctors and scientists in over 100 countries. We can't get together on a regular basis so it's all virtual. When we can be in person, it definitely helps but we can still do a lot, just no talking.
The minor silver lining of COVID is it advanced this whole virtual experience a little bit. It has forced everyone to get into it a bit more, and that might help people who are in all these different countries to connect a little bit better. Where can people check out those videos and share them?
At TearFilm.org. On the homepage, the front smack center. You can click on it, register and access everything. It doesn't cost anything. It's all free and anybody can share. Everything is in English. Usually, when we do TFOS meetings, they're all in English. When we do reports, we translate them into different languages. Everything is free. If you can share, please share.
Beauty Brand: If you believe in what you're doing and create and back it up with evidence and as much as all of your blood, sweat, and tears, you can typically raise funds.
The big thing I wanted to focus on in this conversation is this amazing brand that you have launched. Eyes Are The Story is a wellness-meets-beauty brand blurring the lines between beauty and pharma. I have so many questions but give me your breakdown of Eyes Are The Story, what it is and who it is intended for.
Eyes Are The Story, even the name has a story behind it. What is the entire focus of this new brand? The eyes. That's why I created it. When I first started with the whole TFOS movement, I needed to educate myself about the ocular surface and eye health, and be able to process as much information into my brain and translate it into my human speak. I started asking a lot of questions and then I was thinking, “Maybe there is a larger prevalence of dry eye in women because of eye makeup. Is that possible?” I started researching the different chemicals in eye makeup and skincare, and realized there's a lot more to learn. That was how it started.
I've been fortunate to be involved in a few different little ventures and startup-related types of things. I look at this and I'm like, “There's so much to know. I wouldn't even know where to start.” For example, how do you know which labs and manufacturers to work with? What was the process of figuring that out?
That was not easy either. When I first thought about doing this, I said, “How do I do it?” I'm not going to knock on the door of a big beauty brand and say, “I have this idea. Do you want to work together?” They’ll steal it and run with it. It doesn't work like that. Because of all my years working with TFOS, I have a lot of relationships in the ophthalmic pharmaceutical space so I started asking around, “Do you know any laboratories?”
There was one laboratory that I wanted to work with that I said, “We could create this whole product line and everything.” They told me, “This sounds wonderful,” but then they said it would take at least two years to get authorization to start doing some dabbling in the laboratory because they have their protocols in the laboratory. You can't just whip up a new chocolate cake because if you've always been making vanilla, you can't do chocolate. It doesn't work like that and I don't want to go into science.
They couldn't do it without the authorization so they said, “We can but we need to file for the authorizations first.” I said, “Let me get back to you on that one.” I started cold calling private label companies and then I said, “How do I do this? If I can't go to a laboratory and ask them to make products for me, let's do private label.” I realized with private label, after calling so many companies that I lost count, I don't want to say there isn't quality control, but you can't control what's in the bottle.
You can call them up and say, “I love that.” You pay them, slap your new logo on it, and put it on a shelf. I said, “That's not what I want.” The whole point is I don't like the chemicals that I'm finding in the products. I need to be able to create my own. Once again, creating a monster. I went through my network and one of my contacts had a contact with a laboratory in Canada that only works with big-name cosmetic brands.
They said, "We do not look at startups so we don't care but your idea sounds interesting. It's the whole sensitive eyes dry disease. Do you mean that the chemicals can actually impact this?" Somebody in the business development department had a dry eye so they said, "We want to hear more information." I started with them in terms of the formulation and it was amazing because then they introduced me to another laboratory, and then I ended up working with another laboratory.
I am collaborating with one ophthalmic pharmaceutical company. Those products will be known later. They're helping me with some things. I have a laboratory in Canada that at this point they do the mascara and eyeliner. I have a laboratory that I'm collaborating with in the US and they're the ones that do the face wash, cleanser and serum.
There are different laboratories for different products.
It's not easy because unless you're a multi-billionaire that can set up shop and say, “I have my own laboratory,” you can't do it. You might want to be a specialist for everything but you can't. It's the same with laboratories because if one laboratory is authorized to do one thing, they can't do the other.
That's an amazing perfect example of perseverance. It's like what you touched on before. When you have a vision, you believe in it and stick with it. On a much grander scale, I would normally be talking to young optometrists or optometry students about that. I often will tell people, and it sounds old school and not technologically advanced enough, “You pick up the phone and start calling people.”
You might have to call ten people but somebody is going to be like, “I like where you're taking this initiative. Let me see if I can put you in touch with someone else.” From there, another door opens. Somebody might think, “Amy got lucky and she had somebody who knew somebody. ” You had to call how many people before you connected that?
I'm like, “Pound the door. There must be someone.” It took years. It wasn't something that I did overnight either. I started in 2015. I had been thinking about it for a long time. I started doing the research about all of this back in 2002 when I had the idea. It wasn't until 2015 that I said, “Maybe I should try to do it.” I had mentioned it to Leslie O'Dell. I said, “I need to try. I'm not sure what I'm getting myself into.”
I wanted to ask you, from inception to launch, what was that? Officially, you made the decision in 2015 that you're going to do it. Would you say that’s roughly five years from when you decided, “I'm going to do it?”
I incorporated the name at the beginning of 2016. In 2016, that was when I started speaking with all the different companies and laboratories, and just started. I didn't start doing formulations until maybe 2017. I did about two years of pre-work and self-funded everything. I didn't start asking anyone for money until 2020 because it goes back to the story of, “Aren't you cute? Are you baking cookies in your kitchen?” No. It was several years of pre-work before I even had any products or laboratory relationships that I could move forward with. There were lots of due diligence and legal works. I have so many attorneys for everything. It was a lot of due diligence.
That's incredible that you're able to manage and handle all of that. On top of all of that, you ended up launching amid a pandemic, another global crisis like in previous launches and endeavors. Did Eyes Are The Story launch in March 2020?
It was supposed to launch during Vision Expo at the end of March 2020 in New York. It launched in May.
What was the new approach? You took a month or so to recalibrate and then what did you do?
It was tricky because it took so long to have a product, even the company or anything like that. Even the final branding and everything, it was like, “Let's launch.” I had wanted to launch in 2019 but then I said, “I can't launch in 2019. I have to launch in 2020. It's the year of vision. This will help my investor story. I'm doing everything in a year of vision because Eyes Are The Story.”
It was interesting because we said, “We can't launch in New York. We can't launch at Vision Expo. When are we going to launch?” As we all remember, in March 2020, that was in North America, when the lockdown happened. All the clinics closed. We were supposed to launch through the clinics. I said, “How am I going to launch if the clinics aren't even open? We don't know anything.”
John Dell has suggested and said, “Why don't we come up with a way to excite the doctors about this brand and maybe we can find a way that they can get some sort of return on it. If they can't sell it at the clinic, maybe they can do something. Is there any way that we can?” I said, “Wait.” The doctors can sell in their clinics but in that case, the clinics weren't open. We created an affiliate program so doctors could continue the conversation with their patients. They could still have an online presence and learn about products. People could buy online and the doctors could get a cut. Why not? It's easy.
That was how we did it because so many of the doctors were at home and their clinics were closed. They were on the sofa doing so many Zoom calls and going, “Where are my patients? Where am I? What's going on? When is the world coming back to normal?” Also, even with the Zoom calls, which is fantastic, creepy and bizarre. Everybody was in front of a screen, everybody was thinking about eye makeup. What better excuse to say, “Let's talk about eye makeup and beauty.” It was so amazing at the beginning.
Even more now, we are all wearing masks. I asked my wife about this. I was like, “Do you think that women are doing the eye makeup a little bit more than they used to?” She was like, “Yes. I'm pretty sure.” I feel like it's even more relevant, thanks to the masks and Zoom.
Scott Schachter made up a word. It was before our TFOS briefing in DC for Dry Eye Awareness Month. He said, “Think about it. Mask Era. It's like mascara as in eyelash thing. Mask Era meaning overly makeup while wearing a mask.”
That's what we would go to him for. It's smart things like that. With all of that and the new approach, how are things going? Doctors are back in the office. Are they starting to carry this product in the office as well?
It's interesting because it's such a sensitive time. I don't want to push people and say, “Buy our products. Sell our products,” because there are still people getting sick. There's still a bizarre pandemic above our heads. People are opening their clinics but in many cases, they're not restocking supplies that they normally would and not ordering new supplies. They're trying to get back to some sort of normalcy.
It's different in that sense because I even lowered the minimums for wholesale. Before, every clinic will order 100 boxes. No big deal. That's easy. With Bridgitte Shen Lee, we went over all of the pricing because she has a lot of traffic in her clinic and stocks a lot. She was like, “These are the prices. This is good. This will be great.” The pandemic hits. Clinics are closed. How are we going to do that?
The clinics are reopening and people are starting to get back into the swing of things but it's slow. The doctors are signing up. We have at least 100 wholesale and 100 affiliate link accounts set up. It's great but everybody still is hesitant. They're like, “I'm so afraid,” but then they think, “My patients are all using extra eye makeup and this is a great conversation to have.” There are a couple of doctors that have already done about five orders. It's starting to get more of a normal rhythm.
It's great because there's the option to buy from the clinic or you can get online. What's also cool with the affiliate link is you can embed it into your clinic page. If you have your own clinic, you can have a page. There are several of your colleagues who have done that. They will have a section on beauty and wellness and they will do Eyes Are The Story. They put in their affiliate link so they can sell it at the clinic but also sell it online. If they sell it online, they don't have to ship it.
One of your Canadian colleagues has her online site so she has the products with her in Montreal. It's easier for people to buy from her sites and she will ship in Canada instead of having to buy in the US. There are duties and all that. It's interesting to see how people are integrating it onto their websites or their clinics. It's a rhythm but it's disruptive and different because it's not an area that people were doing before.
It's different. Going back to what you were saying about looking for funding and stuff, it's hard to bring that up. It's like, “I'm doing something that hasn't been done before. Please trust me. I can make this work,” and then there was the pandemic and everything. It sounds like things are finally starting to come together and that's great. Can you give me a quick breakdown of the lineup of products that you have? How can somebody bring them into their practice?
First of all, everything can be found out via EyesAreTheStory.com. It's easy. In order to access the wholesale prices, you have to set up a wholesale account and that can be done through Info@EyesAreTheStory.com. It's simple. What we have for the first generation is a small collection and we did that intentionally because we want to focus the story on eye health. We have the basics that you will use in the morning before you go to the office, the clinic, or what you do at night before you go to bed. We have a face wash. Without going into all the reasons why but everything was developed because everything you use on or around your eyes can impact your vision.
The face wash is relevant because the ingredients in the face wash do not hurt your eyes. We have a face wash. It's a month's supply of face wash. There's a bottle of serum, which can be used around the eyes or on the entire face. I've also had people say that if they have flaky lids, they love using that because the flakiness goes away. It's called an Eye Proof Serum or Eye Proof Facial Serum. You can use it on your face and around the eyes.
I would not recommend the serum. Only doctors can tell their patients, “You can use it on your lids,” but I did not tell people, “You can use it on flaky lids.” Somebody said, “This is so good. Can I use it to lubricate my eyes?” I said no. There's a face wash, serum, and then we have an eyelid wipe or eyelid towelette, which can be used to refresh or cleanse the lids because hygiene is so important. They're also good for removing Eyes Are The Story eye makeup, which we have. We have mascara and eyeliner. We have black eyeliner and black mascara but we are soon to be offering as well dark brown or espresso.
Before we move on, the branding is something that I love. I love talking about branding, personal branding, branding for companies, products and things. You look at it like, “I want to buy it because it looks so good.” How did you come to that? What was the process?
Beauty Brand: Work hard and work harder. Hopefully, you get to where you want to go but don't give up. Thrive on your challenges, obstacles, and drama.
I love that part of that as well. Think about going into Apple Store. Somebody goes into an Apple Store. They're so excited to get a box from Apple. They're like, “I'm going to go home and play with my new toy,” or La Perla with lingerie. There's such beautiful wrapping and you're like, “Wow.”
We wanted to do something so we made two doctor's sets. We made box sets for the clinics. Every individual item has its own box with the Snellen chart on the front facade. On the inside, you will have an iris. What's neat is in the box collection, if you open it up, the iris is cool. It's very obvious but for someone who's not a doctor, it's not icky.
It's also not feminine. It's for everyone because everybody has sensitive eyes. The idea is to have something that you want to get excited about and you can use it again. The collection box is neat because you could put pens in it, your contact lens, assortment or cuff links. You can put everything in there because it's this great little box.
The design was important. When you go to a doctor's office, you think, “My eyes are bothering me.” You leave your doctor's office and you feel old, ugly and sick. You don't want that. If you can buy something pretty, sexy, cool and like a Bond toy, everybody wants to be Bond or a ninja, it doesn't make you feel old and ugly.
You think, “If I listened to my eye doctor, my eyes might not be so bad and maybe I won't feel sick. Can I address the situation? I should trust my eye doctor because they sell me amazing things and make me feel better.” It's like putting hope in a bottle as well. You feel good about it and you want to try it. You don't want to leave the doctor's office feeling old, ugly and sick. That was the mentality as well. We didn't want it to look like a pharmaceutical product.
It looks beautiful. The packaging is very attractive. I get a little more excited about that stuff than the average person. Looking at the lines, the shape of the bottle and the branding of it all are fantastic. Good job. With every episode that I do, there are always two questions that I would like to ask every guest at the end. I would like to ask you those. The first one is, if you could hop in a time machine and go back to any specific point in your life where you were struggling, what advice would you give to yourself in that particular moment?
Once again, it goes back into the entrepreneur persona. You have to believe in yourself. It's not easy to deal with stress, change and obstacles. As I said at the beginning, if there's an obstacle in your way, move it and find a way. It's not easy. Launching a company during a pandemic is not easy and it takes all of you to believe that you can do it. Launching a company without investors is not easy but you say, “I created this company for a reason because there is an unmet need. I have to do it.” There are so many times that you can give up, curl up on your sofa, and put the eye patches on. You can't. You have to get up and say, “Go.”
As an entrepreneur, that's extremely relevant. I feel like that's also relevant in so many other areas of life, whether you're a student, a doctor, or in some other realm. Being able to struggle or battle through those tough times and persevere like you have so many times in your career already is pretty amazing.
It can be cheesy to some people but the expression, "I opened two gifts this morning. My eyes." That's a blessing in itself. I don't care if it's raining outside or cold. If it's raining, the flowers will be happy. Every day is a new day and we get to open our eyes and see something. It is a blessing. Back to your art comments, art is such a part of my life and everything that I do in all of my companies. Vision is like art because it's priceless. We have to focus on ourselves, believe in ourselves, and move forward. If there's an obstacle, just move it.
“Vision is like art because it’s priceless.” That’s very well said. I would like to end on that but I do have one more question so we're going to go through that. With everything that you have achieved and you have done amazing stuff, how much of what you have achieved up until now would you say is due to luck? How much is due to hard work?
I happened to be a little bit superstitious, I have my evil eye on me, but I don't think anything is luck. It's lucky when I run into someone I haven't seen for a while and that's special. In terms of the business, everything is hard work. Nothing has come easily. Even though I can make it seem easy sometimes and glamorous, nothing has come easy. That's another thing that my family instilled in me. Work hard and work harder. Hopefully, you get to where you want to go but don't give up. You can't give up. I thrive on challenges, obstacles and drama.
Trauma or drama?
Drama. Maybe trauma too but trauma can fall into the drama category.
You have a thing for the dramatic.
It makes a good story.
That's true and the eyes are the story. Thank you so much. What incredible insights and knowledge. This was such a fun conversation. Where can people find you online? Where would you like people to connect with you?
Let's keep it easy, EyesAreTheStory.com. Come visit, come by, and share the story.
Thank you, everybody. I know you enjoyed it because Amy is such an amazing guest with so many incredible stories and insights to share. If you did like it, please take a screenshot, throw it up on your Instagram story, tag us both, and let us know what you thought and what you took away from it. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, please leave a rating. If you're watching on YouTube, subscribe, hit like, leave a comment, and let me know what you thought. Thanks, everybody, for joining. Thank you, Amy, for everything you shared.
Thank you.
Important Links
DEWS II - 2017 report
Apple Podcasts – The 20/20 Podcast
About Amy Gallant Sullivan
Amy Gallant Sullivan is the co-creator of the Tear Film and Ocular Surface Society (TFOS) and founder of the new ocular health conscious beauty brand, Eyes Are The Story.
I had an absolute blast chatting with Amy about how she helped turn TFOS into the ultimate resource for ocular surface and dry eye across the world, how she approaches gender bias in the business world, and how she launched her new company during a global pandemic.
Connect with Amy:
EyesAreTheStory.com
Instagram.com/tamingamy
Linkedin.com/ /in/amygallantsullivan/