She Escaped Communism, Reinvented Nail Polish, and Sold for a Billion Dollars

So this is not our usual one, mostly because you and I have our list, like the list of all the big shots we want to interview. And the list is stacked, right? I mean, we are getting some of the most incredible viewers on the planet. We keep doing these interviews, they're getting better and better. More of you are watching. Thank you so much for that. But this one, my wife pulled us aside and said, "What the fuck are you guys doing?" You guys are missing some of the great, some of the big ones. We're like, "Like who?" Okay? If you think we're missing the Gratur two are, then she's like, "Suzi, the wife's fisherman." We're like, "Who is that?" She's like, "Opi." And then we started to explore this "Opi" story. And we're like, "Whoa, this thing is not just some random nail polish company. This is the company that completely changed the entire industry." This is the entrepreneur who changed literally like this whole vertical of product and then sells her a billion bucks. Yeah, I mean, Suzy Weiss, fisherman and OPI took what men saw as frivolous and turned it into a means of self-expression for women and created fashion around what was otherwise just this commodity and basic thing. This interview was incredible because she talks about how she took an existing business, a dental, dense apply business, and figure that a way that actually something they're making could be used for this other thing over here. And Hollywood is kind of getting interested in this other thing over here. And she connects these dots and all of a sudden this dental supply company becomes one of the most important cosmetic businesses on the planet. Yeah. And then she talks about how most companies were thinking about marketing in a very kind of half-assured way. You know, they look at a color. It's going to be a red number three. She says, "No, we're going to lock ourselves in room for 10 hours each time and we're going to figure out a more creative way to merchandise this product. You got red nail polish, you got blue nail polish." And she's like, "No, she's like, we're going to call it Cajun Shrimp. We're going to call it Cajun Shrimp. We're going to call it Wings and Park After Dark. I'm not a waitress." What was amazing about Suzy Weiss-Fishman was just how she's both disciplined and creative at the same time. This is unlike a lot of the other big shots we've interviewed. You know, she's so well-rounded. She's such an incredible attitude. And she really, she changed the entire nail polish. And you know, it's also what I loved about it is the way that she talks about, you know, like where does she get her creativity from? Also, where does she get her discipline? Right? I mean, we've never heard anyone say that that they were able to acquire their discipline from this particular place or that they took the lessons of their parents from the concentration camps and utilized them in ways to build these incredible companies. And of course, you know, she had this huge success. But she talks about raising kids with grit and humility. She talks with humor. She talks about her father and his work ethic. Yeah. And she says no matter what, whether they had no money or they had many, many billions of dollars, they still shabot dinner every Friday night. How that is a staple in their life. This is such an incredible interview. It's a very, very special one for Dave and I. I hope you enjoy it. Suzy White's Fishman here we go. You and I share something in common, which is that you were born in 1956 in Hungary. Yes. My father was born a couple years earlier in Hungary as well in a place called Debretsen. Oh my God. And do you know what that is? I know Debretsen very well and my mom had an uncle and we would go on summers for vacation to Debretsen. Wow. Leo Bachi, which is Leo Bachi means like a man in Leo Bachi to visit. Wow. Oh my God. Yeah. So my father was born there in Debretsen and my grandparents were Holocaust survivors. They went to Hungary after and in 1956 the year you were born, Hungary got really bad. I mean, obviously you had the hangar and revolution and you had communism. And so my father left in 1956 to come to Canada. I came to Canada with no money, no education. Didn't speak English. That's a great, a better life. And I kind of want to start there. I want to start with Lazlo and Magda, you're your parents. We'll talk about OPI. We'll talk about all the success later. But start at the beginning. What was life like for you growing up? What were your parents like? You were in an apartment, shared with another family, I believe. You guys whispered because you didn't want anyone to hear you. Talk to us about the Shabbat dinner table and just kind of growing up in Hungary before you moved. So my parents were Holocaust survivors. My mom was in Auschwitz and my dad was on the Russian front in a forced labor camp. And he actually got injured so most of the time he was in an infirmary called Hasbro. And my dad had a large family. He had four, he was one of five and nobody survived, which is for me hard to believe my dad came back alone in the entire world. Nobody. My mom, you know, the Hungarian Jews were last to be taken. My mom and on the train her dad, she's not sure which camp he was in where he died. And my mom had two younger brothers and her mom were taken to Auschwitz and then separated by Aikman left and my mom was around 19. So she was strong to work and then her two younger brothers and mom immediately killed. You know, it's just so hard. Some believe right. Like here and then. Yeah, it's even, it's a hundred years ago and it still feels so emotional, right? Yes. And it's, I'm just going to give you a little story. My mom always wanted to go back to Auschwitz and you know, we said no, maybe it's going to be too much for her. And then finally, she wouldn't leave us alone and we said, okay, so I have one sister, my sister, my niece and myself event with her. And my mom runs through the gate that's her arbide, Mark Fry. And she runs as if she knows, I'm like, mom, slow down. And she was, you know, already she had a cane, slow down. And she's running and where she went, where she knew exactly where the crematorium was because she never said cottage for her mom and her brothers. Wow. And that was that's why she wanted to go and we didn't realize that that's what she wanted to do. What, what did the name on, what did it say on the gate? What is it, what is that trying to write? Arbide, Mark Fry work makes you free. Yeah. And it was something as you were a kid growing up. Is this something that was openly talked about at the Shabbat dinner table? No, my mom did not talk about her experience until my niece went on something called March of the Living. Yeah. And actually both of my kids did a senior high school nurse, my daughter went to a Jewish high school called New Jew, which is called Dito Ledo now. And my son went to Harvard West Lake, which is not a Jewish school, but the event as well. On March of the Living. And that was really a life-changing experience. I mean, for them to be where their grandma was. And then my mom opened up and talked about it with the kids. So both my parents survived. They went back to Hungary and they married after the war. My dad hated communism. As you say, 1956, the Russians came in. I was born. I was six months old. And we lived far from the Austrian border where most people kind of went over to Austria and then came to the US, the Canada, Australia, different places where Jews were allowed to go. And we couldn't leave. The trains, you know, when the Russians come off, they cut off all communications. That's the number one thing. No trains, no phones, no nothing. And we stayed in that small village, whatever. But my father was desperate to leave. So we moved to a larger town called Jönjöj, about two hours from Budapest. And my dad found this, my dad was a butcher and so was my grandfather. And he found this young man who lived in the village where my father grew up. And he always came to eat at my grandparents' home. And now he was in the ministry in a high position. And my dad took the 4 a.m. train to Budapest one morning. And he had an appointment to see him at his house. And he only asked one question how much. He gave the number. We had the money. And within two months, we were going to Israel. Wow. Because it was before the 67 war. And there was diplomatic relations between Hungary and Israel. We couldn't come to the United States because there are too many Hungarians. And the Canada, Canada already let it 40,000 Hungarians. I mean, the migration out of Hungary in those days, especially in the 50s, was huge in North America. Right. So there's a quarter. So we can come. So we went to Israel. We went through Athens and then the Sochnut, which is the Israeli-releaf organization, you know, gathered us and we were put on a boat to Haifa. And what was that like when you stepped off the boat? Unbelievable. When you see the, you know, in the morning, early morning, you arrive on the boat. And you're a little girl, right? How old are you? I'm 10 years old and we left Hungary. And did you want to leave? Like as a child, I mean, this is much bigger than you probably realized at the time. But like, how did you, how do you remember I mean, I wanted to to leave because we lived all the time in fear. And so many times, they always come at night, knock, knock, on the door. And so many times they took my dad. And you never know if he's going to come back or end up in the Gulag someplace in Russia. And all they wanted is my mom, the next day, went and paid, and then my dad would come home. So it was just bribes. It was basically, they just wanted my dad to spy on the neighbors and he refused. And then one day, they came, but they didn't take my dad. They took my mom. And then we knew that was a message that we never had before. And then my dad said, we're leaving. And then within a week, he went up to Budapest. He arranged everything. And then we waited for our, we sold our home in this town called Jönjöj. And we moved up to Budapest. We said, oh, we wanted to school. And we made a story. We lived in a little. And we had a room place because he said two months and we're leaving. We have to go. Was your father growing up in the house? Obviously he was very enterprising when it came to get in the family out of Hungary and to Israel. Was he an entrepreneur? Did you see that in him? My dad was an amazing butcher. And he had a store where he was the only one working. But this is how it worked. And my dad would go in the middle of the night to the store when he got some meat for the mayor, for the police chief, for this. And then only the fat was left for the people. When he opened at 6 a.m. There was nothing left. Fat, right? Because he had already given the good stuff to the important people. So that almost in itself is very entrepreneurial. Well, yeah, he understood kind of the power dynamics, right? You had to know how, you know, in communism there was all a saying. There was the big door and then there's the little door. And you always had to find the little door. If you wanted to survive and make it. Thankfully, I'd currency. I mean, if you're a Jewish family and, you know, you do the laundry service, you probably, it's not as exciting to the mayor as the ribbed day that gets. Yeah. So we always, and you know, we actually had the rabbi come and teach my sister and I had to pray to read in Hebrew. And I remember my mom always closed the shades and when we were, you know, in LA, my mom would always, I'm like, "Mom, this is my home. This is our garden. You don't need to close the shades all the time." Yeah, but that's true. And I told her and she says, "I know, I know." And the next day she closed the. Of course, of course. It was so ingrained in her. She was just so used to it. Yeah. Tell us about your experience in Israel. What was that like? How was your life there? Oh my God. So we arrived in Israel. And of course, I always had a nose bleed when I was a little girl. So there is such a thing as the ham sin. You know, it's when the dry winds come from the desert in Israel. So I got a school, of course, in my pleated skirt, in my blouse. I guess I was in Hungary. And the teacher introduces me in front of the class and my nose starts to bleed. So I was totally traumatized. But it was amazing. First of all, to call the teacher by her first name, which I couldn't, you know, took time for me to get used to, and the freedom and the, you know, and the friends. And it was just. It was the best time. And I really did not want to leave Israel. And why did you? Why was it. My dad's dream was to come to America. What did America mean? America means opportunities like no place in the world. I mean, I love this country. There's no place like the United States, to be honest. And nothing is always perfect. But this is as good as it gets in my opinion. But presumably when you got to Israel, like, did he set up shop? Did he have a butcher shop? No, my dad worked for Richard Levy, which was a big company that was like a distributor of meats and did the cans for the army. So we get there, and very not too far a few months, the war breaks out. The '67 war. And actually my dad was gone for two weeks because he was working day and night in this place, making food, you know, the cans for the army. So actually I really didn't even see my dad. It was crazy. My mom and I, my mom got a job cleaning the bank, like washing the floor. The bank closed. So I would go to helper, except the bank manager explained to us where the alarm codes are, which we of course forgot. And we don't know every night. And we got my mom got fired because he had to run all the time. Got it, got it. It was so crazy. Mrs. Weiss, now please, I'm going to show you again. Please remember. Please remember. Not to have the police come, and they always call it. So those were experiences that my mom was watching some children. And my sister, actually, my mom had cousins here in New York in far stills. And they came and they took my sister because we thought we would get our green card earlier. So we went to the American Embassy and we applied for green cards. And that's how it took three years to get a number. And that's how we got here. So it's how you were 13 or so. You would come to the US. I was. Yes. I've already been here for a period of time. She was in here for almost two years. There's a thickness emerging a little bit here. Can we get? Yeah. There's a thickness emerging here that I want to talk about, which is this idea of hard work. Your father, whether it's going away for a couple weeks during the '67 war in Israel, or going to Budapest to figure out how to get you out of Hungary, just to kind of foreshadow a little bit. When we talk about OPI and your incredible business success, one of the things that we read a lot about in our research was that, I mean, you worked incredibly hard. From door to door selling initially, to even at the peak of OPI's success, you working, you know, 12-hour days, is that where you got it from? Was it watching your father and his ambition or his work ethic? Is that where you picked it up from? Yes. You know, my generation, this is how we grew up. It was normal. You work hard. And then you hoped you had, you know, with some luck and hard work, you had success. That was kind of not even a question that, you know, and when I speak to young kids in business schools or universities or high schools, I always tell them, you need to work hard. I mean, yes, if you're lucky, you'll invent the next app and you will be a billionaire and congratulations. But if not, you need to work hard. I would say even on the app side of things, you still have that work. It's really really hard. Okay. You know, it doesn't seem easy. It's almost perverse, but you sort of think about your father's work ethic and then that terrible place in the concentration camps, what it said, right, that hard work sets you free. And in many ways, this, it's been ingrained in us and passed down from different generations that Jews work hard. We don't have, you know, we're not the tallest, that's for sure. We're often not the smartest. There is one sort of trait that we've noticed through these big shot interviews, which is that the work ethic is always there when it comes to success. But it's not discussed. I mean, this doesn't, it's not like your father came with this vocal ambition. You know, did you just talk about it or did you just watch it go down? I mean, he did what he had to do to survive, right? Absolutely. My dad was 55 when he came here. But if you remember throughout history in Europe, Jews were not allowed to own land. That's how we became entrepreneurs. We were the silversmiths, we were the tailor, we were the. You were tradespeople. Exactly. And that's how we were, and you know, whatever your profession was. And you know, we had livestock, I remember, you know, in Hungary. I mean, my dad loved, and also my dad loved being a butcher. He enjoyed it. He enjoyed it. I always thought my kids, if you want to raise chickens, raise the best chickens, make sure they lay eggs. Yes. But, you know, whatever you do, do it with the passion and conviction and don't give up. I mean, that was not even a question. Well, you had no choice, right? Your family couldn't give up. So here you are, you're 13 years old. You're now in America. Obviously, later on, in '81, you and a moving LA. But before you moved to Los Angeles with your sister and your brother-in-law, what was in high school, were you getting the itch to be an entrepreneur? Did you, were you interested in business and finance and accounting? Like, what were you like as a teenager in New York? First summer, I came here. I didn't speak very good English. I spoke some. I became, I was a mother's helper and went to the family and to the cat's care. And then she always told me that I, she could buy candy, you know, those. And the mother, and we would go home because that's what I understood. And the mom said, "Suzi, no, you have to say no." But I said, "I thought you said it." But anyway, it was kind of humorous. And then the second summer I worked in Carvelle ice cream knife, you know me, you know, that I'm an ice creamaholic. My dream is to enter a contest of how much ice cream I can eat one day. Amazing. And every night you could get one something that was good. - And you worked at Carvelle? - Yes, that was like an extra thing. So that soft serve, I think. and screamed dipped in chocolate. Oh my God. The best. Yes. What did you learn working there? I learned to work hard, disciplined. I have a little bit of OCDs. I'm always very neat and organized. The one thing I always tell young people that baby communism instilled in me is organization or skills discipline. I'm extremely disciplined. And that actually served me well during throughout my business life being disciplined. Very important, which is I tell my children and young people you need to be disciplined. I put that key always. I never look for my keys because I always put it in the same place. But what's kind of remarkable about that is normally when someone is very disciplined, they're not usually enormously creative. You have both. I mean, you're struggling. We're going to get into it shortly. But you uncommoditized an entire industry and brought a level of creativity that had never been seen before. So you have these two seemingly contradictory character traits between discipline and creativity. When did you figure that out? I mean, it sounds like you got the discipline place at the ice cream store. But where did you start to realize, hey, I'm pretty creative, too? I always had this entrepreneur, your spirit, which we kind of mentioned. And I realized, so my brother-in-law, George Shafer, bought a dental supply company from his uncle, who after the war emigrated to Venezuela, but all his kids were in the United States. So he came to the US and he got very ill. So he wanted to sell his dental supply business. So I lived in New York. And my sister married George. And they were in the smart business around here. On Broadway and Blicorcie. Of course, every story. All of these stories, somehow. I don't know why. They always start in the smart business. Always. And every after my sister marriage was young. She was 21 and almost 22. And very nice, great family from Hungary. And I would go after school to put the tickets in with the Denison gun. Yep. And I-- The plastic thing you put in. Yes. I was so good at it. OK. Of course, you were organized. And then I worked in the car in the shipping. So you know, we bundled 11. And then the 12th one you bundled across. And then Fabio, the Fasi, or sorry, came to pick up and saw to learners and petri and Abraham Strauss and all those stores. And I went to school and I worked. And every Friday, all the leftovers, the overruns, we could sell to the people, the ladies' sewing. So I had money. And that's where I started. And for what I mean, I-- But business, then you work hard, you do this all week. Then every weekend. And then it's cash, too, right, to the ladies? I always say. Yes, but as it gets long time ago, we've heard these stories where all the overruns, the overstock, the things that kind of fell off the truck, you can go sell it. Cash. Cash. I mean, in the smart business-- Yeah, of course. --cashable. Totally. So let's talk about this. So then, George Buy is this small dental supply company. He's in Los Angeles. At what point did you decide to move from New York to LA? You know, my parents said, if you go, we will move as well. OK. My dad worked at World Bound Supermarket. For 10 years, he was the only person who got Shabbat off. Wow. He never worked on Shabbat. And because he's manager, I remember a young man named Dick, he loved my dad because he was such a craftsman. Yeah. And he worked so hard. So he had Shabbat off all the time. And my parents said, if you go, then we'll move. So I went and the sun shines in LA. Yes. Yeah. Well, there's better now life in New York, for sure. Right. For sure. Yeah. So there's no question. And-- This is 1981, I believe, you move. 1981, yeah. And your father-- In the research. It was interesting. Your father accepts you when you joined up with your brother in law. Make sure you get great coffee. Right. And he actually said, don't fuck up the coffee. Don't fuck up the coffee, right? So is that because he didn't know what your role was going to be? Did he think you would be serving coffee? I mean, they didn't think that I would be able to run a business. I mean, it's-- Did you? Were you going in there with this premeditated thought that I'm going to take on the world? Or are you like, I'm getting a job. I'm going to do my best and show up every day. Exactly. Yeah. Record. I mean, I filled the bottles. Yeah. And then one of the things we've fast-- So now you're in LA with your brother and law and your sister. It's a dental supply company. And it seemed like you heard this insight that in Hollywood, these nail technicians were using dental acrylic to create fake nails. How do you-- OK, that's an interesting idea. But how do you kind of put these pieces together? How did that all-- how did you think about, hey, maybe we're not actually selling dental supplies. People are actually selling nail supplies. So there was a product called K-DON. And actually we learned it from nail technicians asking for the product like we annoyed the other guy. They were coming to you and asking for interest. And really for nails? And then some research that acrylic nail extensions were huge in the 1980s. Like women wore these long cold of talons and nails. And then they decorated them and all kinds of things. And we learned this from nail technicians asking for a product called K-DON. And then after a short time, we learned that it's not legal to sell to nail technicians for one reason only because the bond between the acrylic and the natural nail was so strong that let's say you hit your nail on the tip-- You get stuck. No, the entirety-- The nail would come off. Oh, sure. Your nail as well. So once there are enough complaints to the FDA, they look-- Fair safety, sorry. The product and then they banned it. So we said, oh boy, because we thought we more and more technicians would want this. And then one day came this young man called Erickman Gumbler, a polymer chemist, that worked in the movie industry for Westman. I think his name was a famous makeup artist. And nice. And you know, you smooth, you talk. And his polymer chemist and we said, oh my god, you says well, we can do it one chain lower in the mataq rates. Instead of using metal mataq rate, we can use ethanol. And that should be legal to sell. So right away, the hired Erick. He was actually from backies from New Jersey. And he came off with the liquid, the powder, and the adhesive agent. And that was called the rubber band special. And the rubber band special was basically three things put together, is that right? Can you explain that a bit? Yeah. So it was that the primer, which was the adhesive agent that you lay down first. And then the monomer and the polymer, which was the liquid and powder, which used a brush. And you pick up all the balls and you put a form. And you form an extension from your nail. And that's what-- You tied it together with the rubber band? Because very now, we have a band. We have a lot of bands in the office. So you put this together. It's really-- it's hacked together, right? So you have this thing, this rubber band special. What do you do with it? How do you actually start selling? I mean, what was the next step after that? The next step was seeing all these nail salons popping up on Ventura Boulevard, which is in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, like every corner. There are nail salons, wow. So I went and dropped it off at the salons and said, this is a new product called OPI. And please try it. And I'll be back in two weeks. And let me know what you think. And honestly, when I went back, there was only one question asked, where can we buy it? Because the key was to give enough time for the nail technician to form the nail before it hardens from the oxygen in the air. Because if it was-- the cure was too quick, she didn't have-- and then she can fire till the cows come home to shape that nail nicely. The customer can walk out. But if she has enough time, and the powder is very fine, then she can shape it and minimal filing. And as you can know, time is money. And if she can do two customers an hour or one customer every hour, as opposed to two hours, I don't need to tell you how much money, more money she can take home. And it was a huge employer of single women-- Nail technicians. Nail technicians. So it's really a great-- That's your front lines, right? You're the one interacting with all of these nail salons. Yes, because my brother-in-law continued to keep the dental supply business in case this doesn't succeed. Of course, there's a backup plan here. But there's one. Is he seeing it the same way you are? Are you going back and you're like-- Listen, they're saying how quickly can we do that? Forget the dental supply. So although I have to ask a question. So now you have some traction. But the company name is so-- I mean, O'Dontorium Products Inc. So that was the parent company of Davis Dental Supply, which was-- So Odento in Latin has to do with them. Yeah, it is. Sure. Yeah. So we didn't have any marketing. So we took OPI and actually the first straight show that we didn't Long Beach, California, which was like a huge beauty show. The All-Word Buttons, of course, my brother, no hat, have the biggest button. OK, of course. Yeah. What's OPI? So everybody in the show is asking, "What's OPI? What's OPI?" Amazing. OK. So it wasn't like some creative name. It was pretty boring actually. It was pretty much a name. But it was exactly, it's just figure it out. It was different because everybody was super nail, creative nail, something nail. And we were OPI. Yeah. So what would it take us into the room at that first straight show? You show up, you know, there are many incumbents in the space. It's not like you guys, there's a whole industry around. We shared a space with West Coast Beauty Supra. Oh my God, I can't believe I remember everything. Now, ask me how I got here. I have zero energy five minutes ago. But as you get older, I remember, so this is perfect to do the interview. Very good. Yeah, take us into the church. So we shared this boot because we didn't have enough money to pay for a whole boot. And so we shared it with West Coast Beauty Supply. And we set up our little products. The rubber band special. And of course, also individual products. And we had only certain sizes. And then we kind of expanded to files and polished, we moved a little bit of products that a professional nail technician would need to use in the salon. Because the key is for her to buy everything OPI. So that her table, you know, OPI products is prominent, not just one. And what's super nail in these competitors? Like they're seeing you there. People are presumably gravitating towards your booth because you've invented something that the market wants. Are they nervous? What do they do with threats at this point? They're not really nervous because they think. You're a joke. Yeah. Because you're not polished. You're a dental packaging and a pen you have a rubber band. You're a polished opponent. Yeah. So nobody's pretty nervous. But we're like cool people. We're nice. We're nice to everybody. I mean, we love competition always. Because it only makes you better as long as you're number one. Yes. Yes. Competition is always very important. You don't want to be a singer in any industry. And your brother-in-law was he also into this way you were. Yes. He's a funny guy. I mean, humor. And I'm pretty funny too. Yeah, I'm Eastern European Jews. Right. I tend to have this interesting dark humor that we love. Yeah. You know, you just said something that most people would think the opposite on. Competition is good. Tell us more about that. Because most people think, oh, I don't want competitors. In fact, they're guarded. They're nervous about it. Why is competition good? I think competition makes you only better. I mean, you always have to be one step ahead of the competition. And that pushes you. That makes you do research. Makes you do better. How am I going to be number one? And in many ways, whether it's product, whether it's how to evacuate a product, for example, or how to market things, how to get to that consumer. And we also had, by the way, an interesting idea is we wanted the consumer to ask for OPI when she went into a salon. We were the first one to advertise in consumer magazines. My brother-in-law, George, went to the bathroom with the publisher of Insta-Iol, when Insta-Iol magazine came out. We were in the first issue. And he wrote something on a toilet paper, five-year contract. Wow. We always believed in long-term. Yes. And he did, and I also, my whole life, when I invest, when you know, in the business, you always think of long-term. Because it takes some time to. Sure. Sure. Historically, though, when people were going. when women at that point were going to nail salons, they weren't asking for any brand. They were just saying, "Do my nails." Exactly. If the nail technician was good and you got a good service, then you really ask what product you used, not really. So how this whole thing started is, you know, I see all of a sudden Starbucks. Now I think coffee, I love coffee. Coffee with black, with something white. And you have some coffee, simple. You make it at home, drip, drip, drip. But my daughter, who's now 32, and she wants Starbucks, because all her friends want Starbucks. So I said Starbucks. What is that? Mom, you don't understand. It's so great. So I go to Starbucks and I see a line. And I hear people asking for coffee. They want one shot, two shot, foam, no foam. And this is like not even English to me. Like they're speaking a different language. And I am like, they're making coffee personal. And they stay here. Like wow. So when it was my turn, I quickly went to the end of the line to hear more. And then I went back to the office and I said, "George, you're not going to believe it. There's this place called Starbucks." And people ask for their coffee to be personal. We need to make nail polish personal to women. It was before a number and a color like more of number 36. It was not personal. And then we thought about it. We both went to Starbucks and we listened more. And then we looked at their polish in salons. And we see that it's ugly, ugly bottle cap. Again, it's like no personality. You would call us disruptors. And later on, that was kind of a buzzword. But we kind of changed the industry. And we wanted to be said, wow, this is so boring. We can make this personal, fun, exciting, sexy. And if I ask, I meet women still and I find that who I am. So I said, "Oh, no, please, it's okay." People can recite 10, 15 names? Well, I'll tell you something interesting. So just to go off script for a second, the reason that David and I love Jewish entrepreneurs, this whole show is a celebration of it. But it was my wife, Lindsay, who said that you and I have to speak. That we have to interview Suzy from OPI. And we banned you research. And as we did more research, it became obvious that you 100% need to be on the show. And I said to Lindsay, I was like, what are your favorite colors? And she said, "Two, let's be friends and Cajun Shrimp." And I, Kajun and I said, I was like, you say Cajun Shrimp? She said, "Yes, Cajun Shrimp is my favorite one for her toes," she says. She loves Cajun Shrimp for her toes. The fact that you have a product, Suzy called Cajun Shrimp, in an industry that historically was red number three, white number five. That to me is back to what Dave said earlier, that is not just innovative, disruptive, that is real creativity. And the fact that you kind of pulled that from Starbucks is incredible. Absolutely. And the reason you have Cajun Shrimp is because there's two things at OPI that we love the most to eat, number one, because we're Jewish. You're Jewish. You say you want to drink, guys, and where's the food? And second. And second to travel. So we came up with these geographical locations. We want to take the consumer and the nail technician, traveling with us all around the world, eating the best food, seeing the greatest, meeting the cities, the geographical locations, the beach, the ocean, everywhere we went, we wanted her to come with us. Because sometimes you can travel. And you know, when you get your nails on, I always said, it's psycho-nellysis. And I, you know, the technician knows everything about you, the boyfriend, the husband, everything. I don't do my nails, but I've heard that my wife's nail technician knows more about my life than just spend anybody else. So I think that's not the hard dress. And the hairdresser, that's right. There's one called, I love this. Instead of red number three, you called it, I'm not really a waitress. Now, I'm not really a waitress and I even wrote a book. I know, that's the hard book. But just to know, the listeners understand what's so remarkable about this is, English is your third language. And my understanding is you were involved in creating and marketing all of these different creative names and shades and really taking what was so basic and plain and turning it into this means of self-expression. How, like, you know, your first language is Hungarian and Hebrew and then English. So I mean, how, how did that, you know, how did that happen? So the name, so as I mentioned, food and travel, so we would have collections, seasonal collections named after cities or countries or special geographic areas. And we would have a naming meeting where we sat in the large conference room at OPI in North Hollywood and there was always food that was representative of that country's cities because we always have that food. And we would invite people who were clever with names, so Georgia myself and then we would have Susan Feffer, I remember, she actually worked at the shipping department, somebody from customer service. Oh, you would pull different people from across the company. Right. So we would, and there would always be a guest. So there was the core group and then there would always form marketing, form the creative, form, as I said, shipping, customer service, et cetera. And then a guest. the guest but only from the company because these were like big secrets. at how it's done. And we would sit eight and hours to come up with a dozen names for a collection. So I would create the colors. And that would start first, look at trend predictors out of Milan and Paris, which predict trends, not just color trends, but societal trends, everything, because really fabric, textures, patterns, all that matter. And I always started if I had the first color in the collection, then that was it. I got it. That first color was always. And they were memorable colors. I'm not really a waitress, for example, from the Hollywood collection. They give it park after dark. Lincoln Park after dark from Chicago. And Cajun Shim from New Orleans. That's right. Or Russian Navy. Yeah. I asked Lindsay before the interview, what's the one thing she wanted to know? She paused, and she goes, I want to know what Suzy's favorite nail color is. My favorite nail color equals the most dollar signs. Whatever sells the most is your favorite. I love it. I mean, that is the most big shot line ever. Like, yeah. I love it. Yeah, I love it. That's your favorite color. That's right. Yeah. You can just almost imagine, right? All these competitors of yours, when it comes to naming schemes, it's probably some dude, some guy, saying, I'm calling blue sky blue, or exactly. Call it whatever. And then you're sitting there for eight to 10 hours, pulling people from across the company, brainstorming these brilliant colors that, you know, this is in the 80s now. We're talking 30, 40 years later, my wife is still able to rattle off 15 colors like that. From the France collection, a color called Yrono Jacksit become Yrono Jack. Ah, I like that. That's good. That's very good. I mean, it's really interesting. I love that. Yrono Jacksit, and Yrono Jack. So, and it's such a, it was one of that revolutionary color, or Lincoln Park after dark. It was in the front page of the New York Times. We were in the art school. It's amazing. Because God became mainstream, where these dark shades, all of a sudden, could be worn by anybody, you know, before only if you were kind of that God. Yeah. A person, you were black or Lincoln Park after dark, which is that dark, almost, a plantish, black color. And now it was chic, for where, for anybody, and year round, colors became year round. Yeah, you took, you took nail color and made it fashion, in a way no one else ever had. But what surprised me tremendously was, you also had these corporate partnerships, like Dell and with color companies, like, when did you guys realize that nail color could actually influence other purchases? Like, the car you buy could, you know, that your nail polish-- Should be the question. Yeah, can actually-- Lincoln Park after dark. Yeah. Hollywood movies. And, you know, you always have to think out of the box. I tell young people, think out of the box. You know, if you think you have a crazy idea, explore it before you say, oh, no, it's not going to work. And, went to the movie industry, you know, everybody wanted the female audience. I'll bring you James Bond. I'm a huge James Bond fan, by the way. And so Skyfall, I went to London, to present to Barbara Broccoli and the team. And I was there. We don't make a watch. Pepsi. Asden Martin probably was there, too. Yeah, Asden Martin, of course. And others, and people always looked down on the old nail polish ladies here. Now, fuck you. And that champagne dude, who didn't want to speak to me whatever that champagne is, of course, afterwards, he invited me, oh, you got to come to my family's venue. I'm like, living alone. And then the best part was to me was a revenge. Is that they put two raspberries in the champagne at night when we went to the cocktails. And you never do that, I guess, for a-- For high-end champagne. He almost had a heart attack, and I was like, yes. So when I presented to Barbara Broccoli, so I went after lunch. So I was shaking. I was so nervous. And when I went up there, I had passion. I presented-- like the guy from Pepsi probably worked for Coke the week before. And so I presented to the question. They weren't founders of these things. They were executives. They were higher guns. And then she said, oh my god, do we have integration in the movie and the guy I bet him for six months, integration, integration? Of course, Barbara integration. And I sat at her table for dinner. So you know, you do everything with the passion. I believed in this. I did those colors. We named those-- I mean, not myself, all of them, but I was one of them. I did this. And when I went up there, it was like nothing. And I was so good. But sometimes you're not well. We've done 25 odd interviews now. And it's interesting I've listened to you and it's an incredible story. And you say, I believed in this. I don't think people realize when you say I believed in this, like this is how many years in the making? Well, it's interesting. So you moved to Los Angeles 1981. By 1987, OPI is now the number one nail polish brand in America. In the-- In the production. In the production. But that is-- you know, that's actually pretty quick. That's quicker than most of my guests. Six years to go from a young entrepreneur moving from New York to LA to go work with her brother-in-law in a dental supply company, figures out this creative way to present it and this new technology. And then '87, the number one brand for professional salons. That's unbelievable, Suzy. Are you guys feeling on top of the world? You have to take care of the people that work for you, the reps. I mean, we believe in that's very, very important. You know, this was our American dream, but we made many people's-- many other people's dream come true. Meaning you made the people that worked with you rich too? No question. You know, the company culture is very, very important. And people don't realize it. You know, we saw the company, but the new owners didn't realize how important a culture is of what happens to a company. And we, for example, you became an American citizen. You got a $500 bond. July 4th, everybody got $250 bonus. You know, during Christmas time, depending on your job description or what you did for the company. But everybody always-- you know, we took everybody on that ride with us. And also very, very charitable. I mean, Tadaka and Tikkun Olam was how I was brought up. My brother-in-law and an OPI is a company. I mean, we did many, many things. You know, we gave loans, never charged interest to ORV. We had 700 employees at the end when we sold the company. You know, people got loans, people needed money. And very, very family oriented. We had a cafeteria, for example. And we subsidized. So everybody ate a hot meal, at least once, because sometimes people couldn't. So it's very-- for me, that's-- That was really important. Very important. It's amazing. Because so '87, as I said, number one nail brand, professional, professional salons, by the year 2000-- so past four years, 13 years here-- you were now in over 100 countries. In my mind, like Q, like the upbeat music from '87 to the year 2000, was that what it was? Was the '90s for you the glory days of OPI, where things just started to go your way? Or did it feel like a consistent grind? Only the first million is the hardest to do. Yeah. After that, things-- It's just a move. Well, it's a big start to move. But you had-- you guys had a big setback. I mean, you launched lipstick, and I think it was-- it was a real-- it didn't go well. Lipstick was a huge setback. And I always say, if you make a mistake, the biggest as quickly as possible, it makes your mistake, do a recall, and move on. But take us back to that time. You know, we wanted to expand our footprint in salons and beauty supply stores. So, you know, we have the collections-- You had distribution at that point. You had shit and distribution. We have reps, and we had manufacturers reps wrapping us all over the country. And then one day, we decided that we were growing, and we really needed to have our own reps. And we continued to pay our reps for one extra year after we let them go. Nobody did that in the industry. So you got great reps, presumably? Unbelievable, boys. And then we hired our own sales team. And I forgot what I was saying. Why did they do that? Lipstick. Oh, lipstick. Sorry. So we wanted to grow our footprint in salons and in beauty supply stores. So natural lipsticks in those days, in the '90s, you would match your lipstick to your nail lacquer. Today, that's no. But it was at that time. So we come out with lipstick, except we didn't do enough homework that lipsticks can-- what it's called bloom-- when you seal those sweat marks on the lipstick part, in heat. And we were shipping it in the summer in the UPS truck. Los Angeles. from Los Angeles. (laughs) Big mistake. So, a mistake happens. Millions of lipsticks are out in the market. Do a quick recall, bring it all back. And issue credits and move on. I tell this to young people, if you make a mistake, admit it. You know, when you start to skirt around a problem, it never really, be honest, especially in today's world, at that time, social media starting, you need to be honest at a meta mistake and then move on. And we did, we recalled it, and we were forgiven. Yeah, and you didn't go back in the lipstick. They were like, "That's not our game." It's not for us. It wasn't for us, too. You know, do what you do best. Yeah. Sometimes it's better. I think that's remarkable, because most companies often where it starts to fall apart is they forget what they're all about. They lose the what we stand for. They become everything to everyone, as opposed to one thing to a particular type of person that is beloved. Yeah. So, when do you know? I mean, here on the one hand, you guys are so driven and resilient and committed and you believe in it, right? And you go all in on, on, no color and polish. But then lipstick, you try it once, and you stop. You're like, "We're not doing that." You know, like, how do you know when to give up and when to just keep pushing through? Well, you learn quickly because the complaints come and they want to return it. And then the distributor says, "What's going on at OPI?" I mean, we were so always, you know, everything was great. And then this was a huge mistake. And we admit it. You admit the mistake and you bring it back and you issue credits and you move on as quickly as possible. And that's what we did because try to talk around it or skirt around it. Not the right thing. Not your style. It's right. It doesn't work. Yeah. It really doesn't. And again, it was an expensive mistake, especially at that time. But, you know, you move on and make up. How do you say as soon as possible? How do those days feel free? I mean, you know, you've built this empire based on courage and color and chutzpah. And you're doing with George. And those, I mean, you know-- And sense of humor. And humor too, certainly. I mean, it's clear across all your stories. But what does that feel like? I mean, before you sold, we'll talk about the sale to Koti. I think which happened in 2000s. But let's talk just about how are you feeling now? Here you are. You grew up in an apartment with another family in communist Hungary. As a refugee, you then get into Israel. And then eventually make it to the US. Your father is working, presumably, 60 hours a week your entire life. Now you're in Beverly Hills. Now you're in LA. And you are pretty well known, maybe almost famous. You are successful. You have money. How did you kind of-- how did you-- how did the success sit with you? You know, I'm not like a kind of who I am. I was never-- I don't know, to explain it. I went to work every day and I loved what I did. So in that sense, I was extremely lucky. I loved to go to work. When I dropped my kids off at school, I'm like, yes. Yes. Yes, bye-bye. It's time for me to go do my thing. My kids always said, Mom, why are we always the last ones to be picked up? I said, be happy I'm here. I could have left you. We have another child, just the business. Yeah, exactly. So you enjoy the craft, the building, the team. How did you enjoy the-- did you still feel-- was there a sense of scarcity? Or did you feel abundance at that point? Always scarcity. I mean, this comes from my background, I think. And-- comes from all of our backgrounds. I mean, we all sort of believe we have this multi-generational scarcity mindset that no matter how much we do and build and have, we don't have enough. Well, I'm always kind of worried about, like, back to the whispering and the apartment in Hungary. Who's listening? Are they going to come and get us? So that never went away for you. Never. I mean, as I mentioned, my mom always closed the shades. I'm like, mom, please stop closed the shades. We're in LA. Like, no one's coming again. Don't close at night. No, we have to-- I said, Mom, there's no more sun. The sun went down. Do not close the shades. And those things never leave you, sometimes speaking quietly. I might be on need to whisper. My kids sometimes say, Mom, why are you whispering? I'm like, oh, you're right. Sorry, that's the lizard brain, right? From generations who have been whispered. Although, in your case, it did sound like there was a moment where you really felt you had made it, where there was a moment of success when you guys got into Walmart. Oh, my God. Yes. How did that happen? So Walmart wanted us. So we come out to the OPI's professional product. And the nail lacquer also is professional. Meaning we only have to-- So it's all beat up. It's all wholesale. Right. And to beauty distributors, supply stores. But come Sephora. And Sephora is very successful. And they want OPI. But and others, such chains. And we said, we need to come up with Nicole Biopei, which is my niece, George's daughter. So for her, but Mitzvah, we came Nicole Biopei. And that-- So it's a bit of a gift. Yeah. That kind of became the secondary line that could go into different places. Because Walmart came calling on us, but we had to do Nicole Biopei only. And why is that? Because were you worried about jeopardizing the relationship with the professionals? Correct. The professional product. I mean, once Amazon-- Yeah. --all that was gone. But before Amazon, pretty Amazon, there was still the professional and then the retail portal. And so you do fly down to Betonville, Arkansas. And you meet-- Arkansas, oh, my God. And-- Hungarian girl in Arkansas, who could have imagined? I said, I made it in America. Oh, my God. I got a Walmart. I was so excited. If you can make it in Arkansas, you can make it in-- Exactly. So you get the-- you get that-- there was that first purchase order from Walmart like, was that unbelievable? Unbelievable. Yeah. It was crazy. We went to Walmart. I mean, yeah. Like, I made it in America. And you see it in Betonville. All these companies have headquarters in Betonville. Was your dad around when you got in the Walmart? Yeah. You were like-- Like, you see all these companies. I mean, and then you have to sign in. Yeah, of course. I've been there. And then-- And then you see the buyer. And she was super nice, which I really-- Because she probably knew of OPI from her own nails a lot. Yes. So she was very, very nice. And I appreciated that. And did you have the same colors? Or was it different-- Different colors? Different colors. Specifically for an OPI. It was-- Yeah. That was winning target, also. And-- You didn't want to have the same brand going up market and down market at the same time. Right. So that was the-- And so the customer had no idea that OPI was behind the brand. It's in Walmart. No, it said me to buy OPI. To buy OPI. Yes. And that was fine. Different colors. Still a great formula. It's something to be done. We weren't crazy about doing that. Because we really were committed to the professional. The professional industry. And we loved that industry. I mean, we loved the OPI, the distributors, the professional distributors. All family-oriented businesses all over the country. I mean, it was amazing. I mean, super nice people and very generational. Yeah. It's interesting that you describe family businesses is amazing. Because I come from family businesses too in my past. And they sometimes weren't so amazing. They're very dynamic. There's a lot of creativity that comes out of them. But it can be very difficult to separate Russia and a dinner from-- Yeah, I mean, you and George clearly had-- No, at some point, George and your sister also divorced. Right. So how did all of that-- How was that done? Tell us about the dynamic with George and your sister and all that. So we were very close tight-knit family. So you, your husband, George, and your sister? Right. So I got married late. I was 35 when I got married. And I married 34 years in December. Wow. I had to think about that. Go so fast. But my sister got married when she was young. It was a different, almost generation. She was six years. Difference between my sister and I. So it's almost a little bit different generation. And very close-knit family. George only child, super nice to my parents. My parents love him. Like a son. His parents are also-- you know, Hungarian. And it was just-- it was great until sadly it wasn't. Yeah. Did that change? This is dynamic when George and your sister divorced. Did it change? At the beginning, you know, there's all that anger. And then when everybody comes down and realizes the importance of business and what we build. And then-- And you went back to working with George after the divorce? Yes. I worked with George and then we decided to-- sell the business. To sell the business. And why we saw the business. There comes a time where you have to make one more. We saw the industry somewhat changing. You know, all these small mom and pop generational businesses were, you know, big players were coming into the professional industry. So you really have to make a decision of the direction, the next direction that you want to take. So there is some, you know, the family dynamic is a little bit broken, kind of shuffled. You know, the pieces are not so nice and tightly together. Organize anymore. You like everything organized or not. It's not no longer so organized. Well, one of the hardest things in a family business is bringing an outside talent. You know, how did that, you guys obviously crashed, crossed in that threshold. This was much bigger than you and George, and you needed to bring it to-- In the beginning, very difficult. Oh my God. You know, you want to hold on to everything, and you think you can do everything. And then when you realize you have a nice talk in Hungarian, because George and I spoke in Hungarian, when we didn't want to scream at each other, but then nicely we explained to each other in Hungarian that if you want to go to from level one to level two, three, four, we really needed to grow up, grow up and need other people because we cannot do this. There's only 24 hours in a day. And you can only do so much. And some people do things better than you. And that's a huge lesson when you're a small, entrepreneurial business to learn that. Wow. I can get help. People can help me. I can get-- I don't have to do everything myself. You know, one of the things that I read in our research was that you went from, you know, filling these, these, you know, nail polish containers by hand to eventually signing a check by hand for a billion dollars to sell OPI to Cote. And you walk us through what that they felt like for you selling, I mean, at two levels, one level, you know, selling your baby, one of your babies. But the second, again, poor kid from, you know, communist Hungary, signing a check for a billion dollars. Very emotional. I'm about to cry. Yes, it was amazing for where I come from, you know, and when we lived in the small village, it was the outhouse. Yeah, okay. And I always had dreams of falling in. It's an old dream. A terrible dream. A terrible dream. Yeah. So from the outhouse to a billion dollar check, I mean, it's unbelievable. Yeah. And, you know, it really shows you work hard, you're honest, you treat your people. That's to us was always very, very important. We have it, we've treated the people at OPI and our, from our workers who worked in the factory in the office to the distributors. I mean, OPI was always a special company. We had these trade shows in Las Vegas. We had parties for them. We had, you know, gifts. I mean, it was just, we were different. And I always treated people nicely. And I think that always comes back, you know, you're good to people. It really comes back. I mean, that's how I grew up. You give you get, I mean, Tadaka was always a huge part of my life, my business at certain times. I could only give five dollars, then five thousand, and maybe fifty thousand, and etc. So those things are very important. The core values that, you know, I was very lucky because even though my parents were Holocaust survivors and we went through a lot, but they were very kind and very loving people. Sometimes, you know, get all the horrors that these people went through. Sometimes giving, giving God was difficult. We've seen that where it hardens you, where you don't feel like you can have joy in your life because of what you saw. But my sister and I, it wasn't the case. You grew up in a wonderful home, supportive home. And a sense of humor, that was the special, that is dry sense of humor. Of course, I mean, how could you not give him what he went through here? So you signed the check that day from Cody, billion dollar check. And hold on. I mean, for a lot of entrepreneurs, I mean, that moment obviously is amazing. You just describe it. But for a lot of entrepreneurs, the day after that is actually not amazing. Yeah, so what happens? There's a lot of identity, right? Like, you're no longer in the company. Yeah, that's what I mean, you call it a baby. Yeah, is that like? So, yes, you know, you get a lot of money and that's wonderful. But you already had money at this point. I mean, you already did well. We had a very nice lifestyle. Yeah. But, you know, we kept all the money in the business all the time. So all of a sudden, this was a time to kind of, you know, take business out of your money. Was that your first liquidity event, true liquidity event? Yes. Wow. Because you could have taken out big liquidity events. You could have brought outside investors, done a secondary. There were mechanisms to do that. You never did that. Never did that. Now the story's just for control tricks. Right. You don't want to have a vote. You don't want to board a director's. I assume the board up until the acquisition was you and George. Bingo. That's it. That's it. Wow. Wow. I think one of the greatest companies in your industry on the planet and two people. And how that was happening. You screamed at each other in Hungarian and then whoever screamed loud or that. And Hungarian, you know, I grew up hearing screams of, like, the Hungarian yelling, it's like this is wrong. Right. Right. I remember my, you know, the swear words are horrible. Like the Hungarian dialect and voice and flexion. Central mental language. It is Eastern European, right? It's tough. Very. So the day after. I'll hear about the day after. So the day after is very hard. And I got to the office very early and actually the chairman of the board of Cody comes in and it's like seven o'clock and I'm by myself in the office and this man picks in and he said hello. Hello. And then he says, well, can I come in? I said, well, if you tell me who you are, maybe you can. And that was the chairman of the board. He just gave you a billion dollars. Yeah. Come on in. Come on in. Come on in is right. Yeah. Anyway, it was super nice and it was very, very difficult. But things pretty much stayed as is. They wanted us to stay and to continue the business. Did you have an earn out? I'm sorry. I mean, did you contract to stay? You and George, you had to stay as part of the deal. So we didn't, we contracted for one year. Only they wanted five, I mean, not George, because he didn't know how he was going to, and I didn't either. First I said, I'm leaving. Friday I said to Renato, I don't want to stay. I'm leaving. And then Monday, I mean, this was before the final sale. I said, I changed my mind. I'm sad. Yeah, I thought about it on the weekend and it's like, what am I going to do? And I have a family at this time and everything, but this was my life. It was my identity. So anyway, we're there and we're, he comes in and very nice people. I mean, they were super nice and they let us run the company. No interference. Then comes the accounting department. The first ones to kind of take things over. They want to know what are these lunches we're doing? What are these like, what are these parties we're throwing? Why do we need 30 colors? Can we not do it with 10? Yeah. For me, I was better able to handle than George. He stayed one more year and then he left. I stayed because I was, you know, I kind of knew I had to give up for that and was only doing some of the creative parts and then slowly less and less. I mean, I'm still involved with the company kind of year to year doing some PR and things like that. Was there a moment you realized the business is new or is anyone? Yes. When that guy came in the chairman and he introduced himself and I'm like, oh shit, okay, Susie, you need to come down. And, you know, be really nice. Be really nice. And this is what we, I mean, it was the right decision in my mind, in my heart, never. Still now. When I go to, you know, the offices of OPI and in Calabasas now, it's still, you know, I love it. But people are super nice. And they continue to build the brand. You know, OPI is still quintessential. It is still, you know, most people most of the time if they get the choice to choose a product in a professional setting, they choose OPI. They choose O'Don Torium products incorporated. It's amazing. You never change the name. Like something more like, you know, you hear, like, I know some of the other companies that Cody has purchased. They're, you know, it's, it's Kylie Cosmetics. You know, it's very, very different now. But there is this quintessentialness to the product. When you look back, obviously, you know, you wrote the book, I'm not really a actress. And you want to tell your story. When you look back on what you built here. Obviously, you put it in the book. probably couldn't expect it to grow the way it did. But are you surprised that you became sort of the, the, you know, the godmother of the modern professional nail polish industry? Like that you are this, like you are Susan, like you are, you are a thing. It's remarkable. Like are you surprised? - Surprised and I never really, you know, when a collection was successful, okay, I was already onto the next collection and how do I make it better? - Meaning you never enjoyed that moment of, okay, we're doing well. It was always the next thing. - It was always the next thing and in my mind, that's just kind of how I am. Like George was much more, you know, enjoyed and I was, - You didn't go to the awards ceremonies? - No. - George White. - Yeah. - What's next for you, Susie? - For me, next, I mean, I'm a grandma. That's amazing. - What are you? - My grandma? - No. - Oh, very good. Nani. - Nani, that's very nice. My father is Poppy. - Oh, I'm Poppy. - Nani, my mom and, you know, I don't know a lot of Hungarian, but I grew up hearing the Hungarian language in the house and my grandfather sold eggs at a farmer's market his whole life after they left Debrits and, and in a similar vein, there is this work ethic. He never really talked about it, he never said I'm working really hard. It was just sort of the way you did it. And it was based on his life up into that point. It was based on the survival that he had. It was based on taking care of the family. It's this remarkable resilience. - I, and George Schaefer also, you know, he came in 1956 because they lived very, he and his parents and only child, who was my sister's husband. So they went over to Austria, extremely hard workers. I mean, we had this huge work ethic. And I just never, you know, now I'm enjoying life. My husband is a physician, but he also, he now teaches at the VA through UCLA. And his, it's an interesting just to digress a little, but interesting story, his brother-in-law was killed in Vietnam. He was an orthodox rabbi. And he is playing more shot out of the sky in a Friday. So my husband always worked at the VA, seeing pages and the fraudulent, the kidney specialist. And he's from Guatemala. My, after the war from Czechoslovakia, they ended up in Guatemala because they couldn't come to the US. So that's where he grew up and then came to America. And it's crazy what, you know, the life that I live from, where I come from, sometimes, you know, now that I have time to look back. Yeah. And, you know, all the fear that I was growing up and closed the shades, don't say anything. I remember when, in fourth grade, when they asked me, is it true that you're Jewish? And I'm like, oh God, now I'm gonna be beaten up like crazy. And I shook my head so hard that I thought my head was gonna fall off my neck. You don't want to end with saying no? No, no, no, no. This is, you know, it sounds like you're in a period of self-reflection, but you don't strike me as the retirement type. (laughs) So now, I mean, I'm really enjoying being a grandma. Ever keep saying that. Maybe we should skip the whole parenting with a grandparents. All the grandparents, we interview, say, you know, parents are good but being a grandparent is. Because I never really, we never really had the time. You could enjoy it. Get in the car, let's go. You know, my daughter played tennis. I'm like, Andrea, now, let's get this game over quickly. Be the shout out of that girl. And I need to go back to office. So I really don't have time for a three hour game. So try to do this in two hours if you have a meeting. So is it now, is being a grandparent somewhat corrective for that? Yes, I'm so nice. Yes. You're not tough anymore. I go to school to become my grandchildren. I'm there 30 minutes before sitting in the car. Should I not be the first grandma? I love it. And when your kids were growing up, they were the last three picked up because you were busy building your company. I told them to say, thank you for picking them up and not leaving them there. I want to wrap up with this, which is that-- David and I talk a lot about this because we both have children. David's three kids. My wife and I have two daughters. Are children growing up in a very different situation than we grew up? Your children grew up in a very different situation. You grew up very, very different. Your grandchildren, even more so. There is a sense that the further we come from those survivors, in particular Holocaust survivors, the further away we go generationally and vintage wise, that we may lose some of that grittiness. Now, the Holocaust was not the first time in the history of the Jewish people that we were-- there was an attempt for us to be annihilated. So there's been this. This has happened every couple of generations. But how do you raise children and grandchildren to have the grit that you had, Susie, without having to experience what you did? It's true. You are absolutely 1,000% correct. That it's actually very scary. But my children still grew up. My mom was alive. And they were very close. My mom stayed and told the story. And my daughter went to a Jewish high school. My son didn't. He played baseball. So he went to another school. But we told the story, Shabbat dinners. I know sometimes life is busy. We have Shabbat dinner. We had and now we're by grandchildren. My sometimes my son would go to a football game or something in the school after. But we had Shabbat dinner every single Friday. Never miss. I think certain things are not-- you can just let go and say, OK, we'll do it next week. Or we'll do it next month. Certain things we have to do with our children and grandchildren. I mean, my grandchildren come. They go to a Jewish day school. I think the times that we have, it's super important, if it's possible, to send them to a Jewish day school. And I see already my grandson who's in kindergarten, learning Hebrew. And we went to this Friday. I went to his school because they get from an older, a sixth grader, they give a little Torah to the kindergarten. My third grandfather. Yeah. And it's so, so important if you can send them to a Jewish day school, then send them to Sunday school or something. I really believe in the world we live today that it's very, very important. And also, if you can to keep things at home, my husband goes to school every day because now he has the time. He closed his practice. He only teaches. He goes to a minute every day. Every morning. And he sometimes, if he can in the evening, he went to the Shiva of Central Queens here. So he was sent from Guatemala, very traditional family. Yes, of course. And then he went to Rambham High School in Los Angeles. And then he went to college. And he ended up at Hopkins for his undergraduate in medical school and in Vanderbilt, UCLA. So he's been around. But it's very, very important to give a Jewish education, if it's all possible or something. But also to keep things at home. The Shabbat dinner thing, I think, is so important. I also wonder how you do-- on the Jewish side, it's one thing, but also just on the entrepreneurship side. Do you tell your grandchildren the stories of those early days of OPI? I'm a little young yet. So there are six and four. But certainly my children heard it all the time. And they saw it too. They were part of it. So many times when they were little, so mommy, please don't leave. Mommy, please don't leave. And I closed the door and I went. You have enough money. But they have an amazing life and my grandchildren and I myself and my husband. I mean, I live my life with gratitude. And I'm super lucky. I, first to my parents, sadly, my parents have passed away. But the gratitude that I owe, my dad was 55. And then he came to America for a better life. Just start over. To start over. Did he see your success? Was he able to see it? Little bit. He's ever gone to Walmart? Yes. My dad worked at Wallbound Supermarkets for 10 years. From when we came to until he retired. And at the trade show, from Long Beach, the trade show, we would bring the cash home. And my dad was the one who counted the money and sorted the dollars, the $5 that was he loved. That's sure. Of course. Well, I mean, his daughter is out there making money. And it's so crazy that you think about communism created these incredible capitalists. Yes. Somehow, this thing, this way of living, which, frankly, was very difficult, did not talk about ambition or entrepreneurship, created some of the greatest blind nature painters in the blind. Because you needed strength, right? And strength creates success. So yeah, unfortunately, those success without being deliberate about it can create weakness, actually, afterwards. What does it say? Hard times create strong people, strong people create good times, good times create weak people. I mean, you know, the year is for the shift. - No, what is it? - Which means doing business. - You know that? - I love that. - You always did, you know, that's-- - There's always your good chef. - There was always that side good chef. - Yeah, there was always a little bit of a hustle, a little chutzoo, you know, a little-- - Exactly, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I'm reminded at least often says at the end of these interviews, which is, you know, we stand as entrepreneurs, as two young Jewish entrepreneurs on the shoulders of giants, and you are one of those giants. I mean, you don't even realize it, but without even knowing it, you've been in inspiration to us. You've been in inspiration a lot of people listening to this podcast, and it's absolutely remarkable what you've done. And this was a fantastic interview, and I just want to say thank you. - Thank you so, so much. - Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate to be able to tell other young people, and I always say, if I inspired one person today, I've done good-- - Inspired many today. - And I'm going to finish when I speak to young people, and the guys, oh God, they're not Polish ladies here. Now we can take a nap, and I say, now, do not fall asleep, because at the end of the-- my lecture, there is a nail polish. I mean, you go, if you have a girlfriend or a wife, the headache is gone tonight. So pay attention. - You're probably the most sex. It's very good. - That'll be the opening of the episode. Ladies and gentlemen, the nail polish lady, do not fall asleep. - Yeah, yeah, if you want to get late tonight, don't fall asleep on this one. This is really-- you know, it isn't-- - Look, we've got a chance to read some incredible entrepreneurs on the planet, and you were at the top of that list, so would you have built-- is not only-- you know, I said it earlier, I'm going to repeat it, because I just-- I wrote it down, but I said, you know, you took a-- you made a bottle-- bottle of polish into a billion-dollar business with courage, color, and chutzpah, and you added one more, which was with humor. And it is so clear that, you know, all these people lament and complain about their circumstances, they don't have enough opportunity, they don't know the right people, they don't have enough opportunity to do that. - Yeah, I think that's a great thing. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Here you are building this empire, chated industry, and selling for a billion dollars. It is an honor for us to sit with you. - Thank you, no, thank you. It was an honor for me to be here. I really, really enjoyed it. And like we said, sense of humor is a key to getting through life. - I'm totally agree. Thanks so much. - Thank you very much. - Thank you.