Ep 346 | Laney Crowell

Written By Yasmin Nouri

She Walked Away From the Dream Job Everyone Wanted to Build the Life She Actually Needed: How This Founder Built Saie Into a Cult Beauty Brand

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Laney Crowell is the founder & CEO of Saie, a clean beauty brand dedicated to making high-performing products that are elevated, effortless, and always easy to use.

Laney’s path to entrepreneurship was anything but traditional. The daughter of a diplomat, Laney spent her childhood bouncing between continents, learning to adapt before she even knew the word for it. She began her career in entertainment, pivoted into editorial at ELLE and Lucky, and eventually found herself leading digital strategy at Estée Lauder – just as social media was transforming the beauty industry. But even with a dream job and a coveted title, something felt off.

While pregnant with her first daughter, Laney stepped away from corporate life to start a wellness blog called The Moment. She didn’t have a master plan – just a desire to create space for more real & honest conversations around beauty and wellbeing. That blog would spark an incredible community and eventually give birth to Saie, the clean beauty brand that’s now backed by Gwyneth Paltrow and Unilever Ventures, and leading a new wave of what beauty can look and feel like.

In today’s episode, Laney opens up about the real journey behind the brand: how she built Saie without industry connections or startup experience, the moments she almost gave up, and why learning to trust her gut was the best business strategy she never planned. We talk about persistence, resilience, the unglamorous side of fundraising, and the unexpected ways motherhood reshaped her leadership—and her mission. If you’ve ever felt like the outsider in the room, or you’re dreaming of building something meaningful on your own terms, this episode is for you.

Show Notes:

  • What “perfectionism” looks like for Laney. [02:26]

  • Discovering herself through entrepreneurship. [03:16]

  • How Laney’s childhood shaped her comfort with discomfort. [04:37]

  • Struggling to fit into corporate culture. [06:40]

  • Moving to New York and breaking into the editorial world. [08:37]

  • Working at Estée Lauder and finding expanders. [11:11]

  • Starting her consulting work in social media. [12:18]

  • Launching her blog and building community. [13:19]

  • The inspiration behind founding Saie. [14:28]

  • How past work experience prepared her for Saie. [17:09]

  • Laney’s first experience with motherhood. [18:13]

  • Early days of creating Saie. [19:09]

  • Biggest lessons from fundraising. [20:40]

  • How meaningful relationships fuel success, not transactional ones. [21:57]

  • Secured key investors including Unilever and Gwyneth Paltrow. [25:00]

  • Developing Saie’s first product. [28:00]

  • How building Saie changed Laney as a person. [31:07]

  • How motherhood made her a stronger businesswoman. [35:40]

  • Awareness as a key driver of Saie’s growth. [39:30]

  • Why having fun at work matters. [40:23]

  • The support system that keeps Laney grounded in business and motherhood. [41:00]

  • The power of trusting her team to lead and grow. [43:09]

This episode is brought to you by Beeya:

  • If you or anyone you know have been struggling with hormonal imbalances and bad periods, go to https://beeyawellness.com/free to download the free guide to tackling hormonal imbalances and to learn more about Beeya’s seed cycling bundle.

  • Plus, get $10 off your order by using promo code BEHINDHEREMPIRE10

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