When I started Erin’s Faces, I had been a makeup artist in New York City for 11 years. I had worked for other brands, but I had never built my own. I had never manufactured anything. I didn’t have a business degree. I didn’t know a thing about e-commerce, logistics, or marketing.

All I had was a dream and about a dozen really loud voices in my head telling me all the reasons it wouldn’t work.

"You're too late."

"Big brands already run this industry."

"You don’t know what you're doing."

• And on paper, those voices had a point. I’d never built an e-commerce site. I had no idea how to photograph products. My logo was Times New Roman font. I felt like I was learning an entirely new language with no translator in sight (which is honestly why I created my course, but that's for another day 😉).

But here’s what I did have:

• Friends and clients who trusted me
• A deep passion for beauty
• And a desire to help women feel more confident

I had spent years curating lists of favorite products for people I loved. Eventually, I thought, what if I could create my own? A one-stop shop for formulas I believed in. That idea kept me going.

My first packaging was bad. Like bad bad.

But I packed up a suitcase, flew to Texas, and started selling in people’s living rooms. And I sold $10,000 in less than a week. Not because the bottles were pretty (it's the 2011 packaging - nothing pretty about it), but because the product worked - and I believed in it.

So this is for you if you’re sitting on an idea but haven’t started because it’s not “perfect” yet. Here’s the truth:

👉 You don’t need perfect packaging.

👉 You don’t need a business degree.

👉 You don’t need to know everything right now.

What you do need is the courage to take the first step. You can’t edit a blank page, and you can’t build a business that only lives in your head.

You will get better. You will improve. Your packaging will get a glow up. Your photos will get sharper. Your systems will tighten. But none of that can happen until you start.

So silence the voices - whether they’re your own, your family’s, or your imaginary board of critics - and do the thing you want to do. Just start.

You’ll be surprised how far that first step can take you.