How I Built This with Guy Raz
How I Built This with Guy Raz

Advice Line with Bobbi Brown of Jones Road Beauty (September 2025)

August 13, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

When a Founder Returns

In 2020, the day her 25-year non-compete with Estée Lauder expired, Bobbi Brown launched Jones Road Beauty. She was 62 years old. "It was not an option of doing it or not doing it," she tells Guy Raz on this episode of the Advice Line. "I felt renewed." The decision was not about proving anything to anyone else. She had already built and sold an iconic brand. It was about something simpler: she saw products she thought were better, and she couldn't stop herself from making them. "I didn't look at it as hard," she says. "I looked at it as this is so cool."

That instinct—to start from what feels right rather than from a spreadsheet—runs through every piece of advice Brown offers to the three founders who call in. She is not interested in growth for its own sake. She is interested in making something people will come back for, and in not wasting money, time, or energy along the way.

Scrappy Marketing and the Power of Samples

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (03:30) **Opening & Guest Introduction** - Guy Raz welcomes Bobby Brown, founder of Bobby Brown Cosmetics and Jones Road Beauty, to the Advice Line.
  • 2 (10:48) **Caller 1: Mark Sokolowski – Cabbage Labs (Cabdab)** - An orthopedic surgeon who created a muscle and joint rub from cabbage leaf extract, now seeking advice on scaling beyond his own patient relationships.
  • 3 (13:54) **Bobby’s Advice to Mark: PR, Samples, and Low-Cost Hires** - Bobby recommends old-fashioned PR and a scrappy marketing assistant over an expensive agency, plus shrinking the giveaway size to enable wider distribution.
  • 4 (17:34) **Guiding a Side-Hustle Surgeon** - Guy asks how a busy surgeon should balance a side business, and Bobby advises hiring help and accepting a slower, organic growth pace.
  • 5 (26:32) **Caller 2: Abby Roselier – Abby Rose Phone Cases** - A 23-year-old founder who started a custom phone case business at 16, now doing over $200K/year in sales entirely through organic social media.
  • 6 (31:04) **Bobby’s Advice to Abby: Don’t Chase Rocket-Ship Growth** - Bobby warns against the pressure to go viral and suggests experimenting with new faces and content formats rather than jumping into retail.
  • 7 (33:42) **Guy’s Take: Delegate the "You" Role** - Guy reinforces that Abby needs to train other people to be the face of the brand, using her family as a natural starting point.

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Guests on this episode

Guy Raz

Show Notes

Today's callers: Bob in Chicago looks to promote his cabbage-based muscle and joint rub beyond the walls of his orthopedic practice. Then Abby in Dallas wonders whether her popular social media livestreams are a sustainable way to market her trendy phone cases. And Henry in Charlotte wants to turn his mouth rinse for coffee drinkers into a mainstream oral care brand.

Plus, Bobbi shares what drove her to found her new company—Jones Road—at the age of 62.

Thank you to the founders of Cabbage Labs, AbbyRose, and Tannin Oral Care for being a part of our show.


If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode—where Guy and former show guests take questions from early-stage founders—leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [email protected] or call 1-800-433-1298.

And be sure to listen to Bobbi Brown Cosmetics’ founding story as told by Bobbi on the show in 2018.


This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Cena Loffredo.

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