From underdogs to disruptors: how Tubi and e.l.f. built a different game

The very best founders I know are brilliant at building systems. They connect teams, they remove bottlenecks, and they eliminate single points of failure. And yet, when it comes to their own wealth, most are running a disconnected stack. A tax accountant here and a state attorney there, a wealth manager who doesn't talk to either one of them. Creative planning was built to fix exactly that. One integrated team of tax professionals, estate planners, investment specialists, all coordinated by a dedicated wealth manager who sees your full financial picture and keeps every piece working together. Proactive tax efficiency, estate strategy, investments, all under one roof. Creative planning where wealth works together. Learn more at creativeplanning.com slash masters of scale. We've all spent money on something that seemed incredible. But didn't live up to the hype. A kitchen gadget, a car. When it doesn't deliver, the disappointment is real. Marketers suffer from this too. Chasing metrics that look great, but don't translate into revenue. LinkedIn calls that bullspend. Invest in what matters and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. You can target by company, industry, job title, and more. LinkedIn ads also generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. So. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash scale. That's linkedin.com slash scale. Terms and conditions apply. Accept faster and scale AI with confidence. All the power of AI. None of the uncertainty. Learn more at pega.com slash AI. We as consumers tend to think if something is free, there's a catch. It must mean it's low quality content or the experience is bad. That is the battle we have been trying to fight. What Tubi and Elf do uniquely is see the ones that everybody else misses. We're a symbol of the overlooked and a champion of the underdog. And they roar with courage when you find them. That's Anjali Sood, former CEO of free streaming service Tubi. And Corey Marchisotto, president of Elf Beauty, recorded live at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco in October, talking about the bold risks that have transformed the brands from downmarket underdogs into major industry disruptors. Anjali and Corey share hard-earned lessons from TikTok to the Super Bowl to Elf's So Many Dicks campaign. Two weeks after this recording, Anjali announced that she's taking over as CEO of SiriusXM, which underscores what she achieved at Tubi. So let's get to it. I'm Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response. Please welcome the CEO of Tubi. Anjali Sood and the president of Elf Brands, Corey Marchisotto. Welcome to my living room. It's beautiful. Thank you. I have to say that when I was thinking about the two of you and your brands, that there's kind of this subversive thread that runs through both of your businesses, that you've sort of targeted these consumer communities, these constituencies that might otherwise be overlooked, right? And in doing that, you've ended up attracting customers even among the more privileged, let's say, right? It's a little bit revolutionary. Do you guys talk? I mean, you two know each other. We do. Do you talk about that? We coordinated these outfits. No, we didn't. I think we talk about it quite a bit. And I won't steal Corey's words because she says it so well. But, you know, we met a couple of years ago. And, you know, Tubi is trying. We're trying to democratize storytelling. And Elf is doing what they're doing. And we really did feel that connection of really just trying to approach a category in a different way. But not different just to be different. Different in a way that serves the consumer and really puts them first. And I think we're both benefiting from seeing that in our businesses. Yeah, I mean, Corey, do you think of yourself as a revolutionary? Are you revolutionizing the world of beauty? I don't know if I would say revolutionary. But we call ourselves at Elf bold disruptors with a kind heart. And it's a really important way to frame things. Because when you know who you are and you know what you're up to, then you attract others who are doing the same. Anjali is a bold disruptor with a kind heart. And that distinction is really important. Because when you think about a lot of innovative companies, they're doing bold disruption. So then there are kind hearts, right? And kind hearts, there are many. Bold disruptors, there are few. The intersection of those two things is a unicorn. Because you're fearless and heartful. Most revolutionaries can be heartless. So that's the magic of Elf, is that we're bringing those two worlds together in what I call unicorn territory. So I have to admit, Anjali, that when Tubi first hit my consciousness, I had this sort of vague sense of this kind of down market, free streaming service that no one I knew used, or admitted to using. What was your initial sense of Tubi? How did you think about moving from sort of outsider status to today, like 110 million or more users? Yeah. You know, I had a similar experience before I joined Tubi. I think even though Tubi has been around for more than a decade, fully committed to this mission of free streaming and platforming more stories, you know, I think we as consumers, tend to think if something is free, there's a catch. And in some ways, I think that is the battle we have been trying to kind of fight and prove to consumers. But it's more of a testament to the market that we're in that as consumers, we almost can't sort of accept that of course you can have a wonderful experience. Of course you can get the best of Hollywood and the best of the creator economy and original content. And it can be free and it can be great. And so, you know, for me, I liked that in some ways that Tubi was underestimated because the product was good. And the minute that I could see that we were doing something that if anyone would try it, they would enjoy it. I mean, that's a wonderful place to sort of try and disrupt from. And the key has just been that we never lose focus and sight of that and we stay committed to it. Could we just applause? One hundred and ten million monthly actives. Like, we just throw numbers around like it's no big deal. That's a really big deal. All right. Well, I want to throw some numbers about Elf Beauty. Okay. Because the thing is, like, this is a brand that's built on affordability at a time when the beauty business, I mean, it's sort of about premium and exclusivity. That kind of is what has defined the market. And you guys talked about, what is it, prestige quality at drugstore prices, which can sound like a madman's slogan that's not going to, you know, hold up and really. But Elf has been growing 29 consecutive quarters. Thirty. I'm a quarter behind. Two billion dollars in revenue, my annual sales, right? I mean, what was everyone else missing that you guys saw or did? Yeah. So I would position that as making the inaccessible accessible, which is exactly what Tubi is doing as well. There's a lot more in common in businesses, businesses that are serving the underserved than not. And if I had to break this down into a four-part blueprint for the audience, the starting point is the consumers we see. The second part is you've got to challenge conventions. We're both in businesses that have been in the business and I've built hundreds of years of BMFs. And the reality is you can't take them on. I can't play your game. I'm not going to win at it. L'Oreal is a $45 billion company. They're incredible, a formidable opponent. I love what they're up to. You keep doing that. I'm going to come over here and do this. I'm going to find a new way. I'm going to challenge conventions. I'm going to change the conversation. And I'm actually going to build a different game. Then the third part is you've got to scale the business in that white space, right? Who are these people we found? What do they desire and what is available to them? You find what is not. That's the gap between what is available and what they actually desire. And then you scale the business in that space, which then takes you to the fourth piece, which is I have now opened the doors for others to follow because they see that there's another path. Right. And it's not just that initial community that gets attracted by what you're delivering. I mean, you've both made, creative moves to demonstrate your differentiation as brands and including some other people. unconventional Super Bowl ads, which I think we might have some visuals of, Tubi's that bizarre cowboy hat head spot. You know, I don't know whether folks remember that or else Melissa, right? You remember this? I remember thinking like, what is going on? And then else Melissa McCarthy, telenovela spoof, right? I mean, when you guys thought about it, is the Super Bowl a way to reach? I know, it's just hard to compete with her. But let's just let her finish. There we go. Is the Super Bowl a way to reach scale or a way to demonstrate scale? Well, I think for Tubi, it was both. You know, generally our brand, we're fans of the fans and our fans love everything and they're eclectic and sometimes a little unhinged. A little strange. And we embrace that. I think for us, it's about reflecting that we see and get our fans. And so there is a part of it that's reached. I think in Tubi's case, you know, two years ago, we actually streamed the Super Bowl for free. It was the most streamed Super Bowl in history. And we were able to offer millions of Americans free access in 4K, the lowest latency, just a great experience. And so for us, it's also just a way to show, hey, it is possible for premium entertainment to not come with a huge price tag. And it is possible to be able to get, you know, a wonderful experience about prices increasing all the time. And we just wanted to kind of bring that. So for me, the Super Bowl, has been both. It's been sort of this way to reach and connect with our fans, but also a way to expose many more people to the potential of the platform. Yeah, if you go back to the four-part blueprint I said before, the first one is, where are they? And when you think about the big game, there's 120 million viewers, right? We studied every single commercial. Less than 1% were talking to women. There they are, showing up, 50%. 80% of the audience, and nobody's talking to them. That's why we're there. And no beauty brands had ever showed up in that space before. And that was the challenge of convention. Well, it's not because nobody has done it before that we shouldn't do it. So let's scale our own brand in this space in a meaningfully differentiated way. And we didn't just show up at our first Super Bowl, let's just say quietly. No, it was not quiet. We roared with courage with Jennifer Kulik. So we didn't just put a woman at the center, we put a 60-year-old woman at the center. And it was so unbelievably well-received. Like, the entire floor of our business, all of our metrics, blew in terms of, you know, unaided awareness, all of the things, likability that you can imagine. We said, okay, well, we just actually tickled something that nobody else has. So we came back the second year with Judge Judy, an 80-year-old woman. So if you see what we're doing, it's not just about showing up for the underserved, it's about showing up for the underserved. It's about telling them that you belong here. We see you, and we're making a place of belonging where nobody else did. You guys have also both leaned into TikTok. I know, Corey, your CEO, Dharang Amin, told me that you pressed him to do TikTok Live to talk directly to customers, something you call zero distance. And Anjali, you've tapped TikTok to find characters for shows, a partnership called the Creatorverse. Like, what does TikTok offer you as a platform that helps you differentiate? So our CEO, Dharang Amin, definitely didn't tell him I pressed him. He said, I torture him. He is so tortured every time I put him on TikTok Live. Why do we love it? And it's not just about TikTok Live. It's any place you could livestream zero distance between you and the community you serve. What happens is, in a lot of companies, there's grave distance. The CEO and the C-suite sit in an ivory tower, and it's everybody else's job in the company to serve the consumer. I'm like, no, no, no, no. It's our job. It's from our position, no matter where we sit. So the best way to do that is how do we get in front of the most amount of people in the shortest amount of time? Why am I going to sit in a room and brainstorm with a bunch of folks what the consumers want? Why not ask them directly? So I put our CEO. It sounds so logical. So logical. But I could have my own meeting and just talk to my own people, you know? So the first time that I brought our CEO on a TikTok Live, 15,000 people showed up. He was so terrorized by their demand for bronzing drops. That we didn't have and that were in the pipeline. He literally left the TikTok Live. He's like, okay, I'm going to go get it. Ran down the hallway, went to the innovation team and goes, I need bronzing drops now. And we fast-tracked the timelines and got it to market in six months when it was planned on the calendar in 12 or 18 months later. So that's the kind of power that you have when you ensure zero distance. And one other example I want to add, because this is super powerful. We ask our community, what do you want to hear from your brand I mean, you want to spend time with us. We created a place of belonging. What do you want to hear from us? The number one thing that kept coming back was career advice. And the second thing was financial literacy. This is not a beauty brand anymore. This is a trusted friend. We talked a lot about trust yesterday. This is trust. So what did I do? Mandy Fields, CFO, I'm going to need you to come on a Twitch live stream and teach financial literacy. 110,000 people showed up. 110,000. So when you open the aperture and you actually widen the relationship and extend the limits of where you think you're standing and it opens up a complete new pathway for a relationship between you and the people you serve. And I think it's so true that zero distance relationship with fans and, you know, Tubi, we will routinely green light shows and movies or platform stories because of what our fans talk about. But I think what's even more exciting is not just the fact that we're all in this together, but going from listening to our fans and connecting with them to making, giving them a voice to be the creators of their stories. And that's a whole nother area we're seeing now. You know, what's great about working with creators is that all day, every day, all they do is serve their fans, right? They're constantly creating content based on what their fans want. And historically, if you look at Hollywood, it's a very different, it's a studio kind of system. It's very different. And there's this really interesting thing that's happening right now where they're, you know, these two areas, it's not that it's a battle or it's a shift, it's a bridge. And we're seeing that, you know, there's an influencer on TikTok named Noah Beck who had never done a movie before. And he became a star and producer of a Tubi original franchise called Sideline that's had 20 million views. We did not do marketing. It was the fans clipping scenes and sharing it. And now he's starring in Baywatch, right? So you're seeing this transition, actually, where TikTok and these platforms, because they're so close to the fans, they're empowering and we can help empower those fans to not just be heard, to actually be storytellers and participate in a way that I don't think we've seen in Hollywood before. Corey and Anjali seem to revel in making unconventional choices. So how do they keep that edge as they grow from disruptors to established players? We'll talk about that and more after the break. Stay with us. When you've built substantial wealth through your business, it's often tied up in a single equity position. The upside is real, but so is the risk. And knowing when to act isn't always obvious. Creative planning works with business owners to build a strategy around concentrated equity. When to diversify, how to manage tax risk, and how to protect what you've spent years on. Creative planning, where wealth works together. We all know the disappointment that comes when a grand gesture falls flat. Something that seemed impressive in the moment, but didn't deliver the results you expected. Marketing budgets too often fall into that trap, aiming for big impressions, big reach, but without the revenue to back it. LinkedIn has a name for it, bullspend. Bullspend. LinkedIn ads, generate the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. They target by company, industry, job title, and more. Every business hits the same wall the moment your business outgrows the systems that got you here. Spreadsheets everywhere, five different logins, data scattered across entities that don't even talk to each other. If your finance team spends more time finding data than using it, that's when you need the Intuit ERP. Intuit Enterprise Suite is the AI-native ERP solution that's powerful, painless, and proven, built for businesses scaling fast without the complexity that usually comes with it. From the makers of QuickBooks, learn more at intuit.com slash ERP. Before the break, Anjali Sood and Elf's Corey Marchisoto talked about operating as underdogs to disrupt industry leaders. Now they talk about what it takes to stay bold as you grow, including Tubi's positioning inside Fox and Elf's provocative So Many Dicks campaign. Let's jump back in. Tubi is part of Fox, so that traditional studio is, Like, really? Right next to you. I mean, your offices are on their lot, right? Is that awkward? You know, it certainly could be. And what's been so wonderful is that it has not been. And, you know, I think Tubi, we operate very much like a startup still. Even though if you look at our scale and size, it's not just 110 million monthly active users. I mean, it's over a billion in revenue. We're profitable. And yet, if you were to come onto the lot and work with the Tubi team, we feel like a challenger every day. And I think we've fought really hard to kind of preserve that. At the same time, there are huge opportunities that come when you can be a bridge, right, to Hollywood. And, you know, the example of streaming the Super Bowl, that was in partnership with Fox Sports. Right, which wouldn't have been available to you if you were not part of Fox. Yeah, we were able to stream World Cup matches and create stories around and shoulder content around, like the docuseries following the players. All of that is because. Because we're trying to not just exist in the space of Silicon Valley and be that startup disruptor. We see it as, like, we have to help create that bridge so that we are kind of lifting all boats. And this is an industry that I think can really use that. And I think that's why you're seeing the success at the scale that we have. So, Corey, I have to bring up Elf's So Many Dicks campaign. I think we have an image of that spotlighting that there are more men Yep. dick on corporate boards than there are women overall or a bunch of other different groups. Oh, I wish you had the video that says so many dicks. Because that's actually what happens after this still shot that you have. So, I mean, a beauty company wading into corporate governance. Okay, I take it you haven't seen it. This is amazing. Okay. Yeah. So, this is not something that someone would say, oh, yeah, we're a beauty brand. Let's do this. Yeah. Like, why wade into this? So, when you think about opening the aperture and asking yourself what business are we really in, it's about liberating access. It's not just about liberating access to the best of beauty. It's also about liberating access to equity. Every single elf is a shareholder. All of them. Our coordinators, our front desk, every single elf. So, we create a spirit of ownership. We also liberate access to the highest seats of power, which is the boardroom. And when I started Elf, it was probably, I don't know, maybe 10 quarters in where I was like, hmm, this can't be normal, right? This can't be normal what I'm looking at. Majority female and very diverse. This can't be normal. So, I did what anybody would do in that moment. I went and asked our investor relations team for some data. And I said, please tell me if you studied every single publicly traded company, there are 3,700. Is there anybody else whose board looks like, and the answer was shocking. At that time, we were the only one out of 3,700. The only one that was majority female and over 40% diverse representation. You have one of two choices in a situation like that. Take a victory lap and be like, yeah, look at us, we're great. Or jolt people into awareness to inspire change so that other boardrooms can look like yours. You felt like you didn't have a choice. Like you had to share this. It was like boiling, right? I had the fire in my mouth. I was like, we have to change the game. But this wasn't like proprietary data. Like, this is out there. It wasn't, actually. So, we had to enter 37,000 names manually into a database. And when we crunched the numbers, what we found is there were more men named Richard, Rich, or Dick than entire groups of underprivileged people. So, when we were in our creative brainstorm, we weren't even looking for the title of the campaign. It was just that moment when somebody was like, what is a data center? And they're like, there's a lot of dick in there. And then somebody else turned around and goes, yeah, so many dicks. And I was like, guys, and we're done here. And scene. And scene. So, obviously, we said, well, we could be the beacon of change. Our case is bulletproof because not only does our board represent less than 1% of all publicly traded boards on the NYSE, but we've got the 30 consecutive quarters of growth to show that there's a lot of dick in there. There's real business impact. When you have a variety of perspectives in the boardroom, it changes the outcome of your business. So, it's good for business and it's good for society. Amazing. Anjali, as a CEO who's not named Dick, how do you respond? Does this echo for you? Like, yeah, this is my life? Or do you're like, I just don't want to think about it? Oh, I mean, I think it's so. I think it's so needed and courageous. So, I have been blessed to be on several public company boards. And I think the thing that has been missing that Corey and her team are doing so well is taking the conversation beyond just representation and having voices in the boardroom to impact. Because that's really what this is about. That's what this is about. It's about successful businesses and growing and change. And that is, I think, one of the first times we've heard that message, which is it's not representation and bringing people's voices into the rooms just for that so we can pat ourselves on the back. It's because we want to succeed. We want to win. Let's go and do the things necessary to win. And so, you know, for me, I think it's wonderful to see. And it certainly makes me, personally, want to be a champion for a brand like Elf. So, we only have a couple minutes more, but I am contractually obliged at this point to bring up the topic of AI. We challenge conventions. Yeah, we're happy to challenge that. We're happy to challenge that. Is there a philosophy about AI that underscores what you're doing it to be? Is it, you know, I mean, AI is changing Hollywood and entertainment. We've actually been using AI and machine learning to personalize experiences for a very long time. And we continue to think there's so much room when you turn on your television. People spend 15 minutes still searching for what to watch. And then you start scrolling on TikTok and then you give up and move on. And, like, technology and through things like AI should make that way better. And then on the storytelling side, I mean, I've spent over a decade, you know, trying to help storytellers use technology to lower the barriers to actually get their ideas from imagination to a finished piece that they can put out into the world. And I think there's a ton of opportunity there helping lower the barriers to creativity and storytelling. We do expect there to be more content created. We're already seeing this. There's a lot of content out there. And yet there's this paradox of choice. If everybody's making content, how do we get them an audience, right? And so I think that's where Tubi sees, we see ourselves as kind of being able to help with that distribution and try and make sure that every story's worthy of finding their audience. How are we going to help them do that using technology? Do you have an AI philosophy at Elf? We do, and then I'm going to have a revolutionary answer to that question. So our AI philosophy is human-centered. Human first, human last, AI in the center as an enabler of the humans. Now I'm going to take the revolutionary place on the five seconds we have left. And because I'm sitting next to a female CEO, I really want to say this because it's fundamental. Fortune 500 companies, only 10% of CEOs are women. Anjali is a beacon of what's possible. And all of us in this room need to be the allies and the champions of women who are sitting in the CEO chair because we need to see a lot more of them. So I'd like to applaud you. Thank you so much. That was great. Thank you. There is something revolutionary about Corey downplaying AI in favor of diversity. But then again, leadership has always been about the human dimension. And don't you just love how Corey and Anjali each lift each other up? It's a timely reminder, especially post midterms, how connection grows from kindness, not meanness. Our upcoming episodes will share more from Masters of Scale Summit, including insights from Walmart CEO, John Ferner, Shake Shack founder, Danny Meyer, and more. I'm Bob Safian. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next time. Atlas. Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There's going to be two types of companies. Those are great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future that is human centered? I'm Rana El-Khayoubi. And on my podcast, Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Everyone. week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future, and we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find Pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. Hey, listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show, because every Friday, we release a second Rapid Response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely, from Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from the Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find. Just search Rapid Response wherever you listen to podcasts, and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there. I'm Bob Safian. Our executive producer is Eve Trow. Our senior producer is Alex Morris, and our associate producer is Masha Makutonina. Mixing and mastering by Aaron Bastinelli and Brian Pugh. Our theme music is by Ryan Holiday. For more, visit RapidResponseShow.com. you