It was a blast sitting down with Dr. Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell, co-founders of Beekman 1802 for our fireside chat. I left leaving inspired and ready to launch my own brand! If you missed out on the fireside chat, here are the key takeaways and the recording is shared below as well: 

1. Start by doing everything yourself: “If you cut your own wood, it warms you twice.” They emphasized that their early success came from being hands-on with every aspect of their business, from coding their website to hand-selling soap in department stores. Learning every role gave them a foundation of resilience and adaptability, which proved invaluable as the company scaled.

2. Mistakes are lessons in disguise if you let them be: One of their biggest missteps - launching 50+ SKUs at Target without understanding how to drive sales off the shelf, nearly derailed the business. But it taught them a critical growth lesson: execution includes sell-through, not just sell-in. That experience informed their later success at Ulta, where they reserved budget for field teams and promotional support.

3. Authenticity is more powerful than trend-chasing: They encourage entrepreneurs to be iterative, not duplicative - engage with trends only if it feels authentic to your brand. Their fragrance mist, for example, stood out in a crowded market by being good for sensitive skin consistent with their brand’s values.

4. Kindness is a strategy - and it’s scalable: Through tools like KindWorks.ai, their “Kindness Curriculum,” and a data-backed Kindness Quotient, they’ve proven that kindness improves both culture and performance. Employees who engage more with kindness prompts see higher job satisfaction and even greater sales output. Kindness, when operationalized, becomes a strategic differentiator.

5. Fundraising isn’t the goal, building value is: They push back against the “Shark Tankification” of entrepreneurship. They believe many founders are mistakenly building fundraising machines, not businesses. Instead, they advocate for proving your business model first, then seeking funding to scale. Their own investment came 14 years in, once their business was proven and their value was much higher.

Brand spotlight: 

I am excited to feature Beekman 1802 - a skincare and lifestyle brand founded on the principles of kindness, community, and the nourishing power of goat milk. What began as a simple farm in Sharon Springs, NY (which happens to be 20 minutes from my hometown, what a coincidence!) has grown into a nationally recognized name, celebrated for its clinically proven, sensitive-skin-friendly products. Co-founders Dr. Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell have built a company that blends science with nature, delivering effective skincare while fostering a loyal, inclusive community known as "neighbors." Today, Beekman 1802 continues to lead with compassion and innovation, redefining beauty through the lens of kindness. Their story and philosophy can be explored more in their book, G.O.A.T. Wisdom: How to Build a Truly Great Business.

What is the mission and goal of Beekman 1802?

Beekman 1802 is a skin health company that creates cutting edge and clinically powerful formulas for managing sensitive skin, maintaining the skin microbiome, repairing the skin barrier, and controlling inflammation using the powerful ingredients extracted from goat milk along with and the science of Kindness.

How did your brand come to fruition? What is your origin story?

Our company started from a single act of Kindness, one Neighbor helping out another.  With Dr. Brent's medical training in the science of aging and longevity, we went from that moment of taking in a homeless farmer and his homeless herd of goats, to one of the most clinically differentiated companies in the beauty industry and one of the top independent skincare companies in the USA.

What excites you most about your brand?

We are most excited in all the ways that we continue to invest in the science of Kindness and all the ways the company continues to grow and innovate with Kindness as a guiding principle:  Kindness to skin, Kindness to body, Kindness to mind, Kindness to community and Kindness to Earth.

Using biotechnology we are able to utilize our most precious natural resource, the goat milk, in the most efficient way.

Using the Kindness Quotient from our partners at Kindness.org, we are able to screen all of our Kindness Krew (approximately 3,000 influencers and affiliates) to make sure that the content they produce on our behalf is responsible for putting more Kindness into the social sphere

Using the ground-breaking integrative technology from our partners at Kindworks.AI, we are able to maintain a company culture of Kindness with constant and adaptive prompts and measures.

What’s next for Beekman 1802?

We say that in order to create a GOAT brand that will withstand the test of time and trend, you need to raise a herd of GOATs.

We are building a powerful executive team that will take Beekman 1802 global in the coming years which enables us as founders to take a step back and think of our bigger purpose: how to put more Kindness into the world.

We believe mentorship is an act of Kindness and want to take some responsibility for utilizing what we have learned over the past few years and letting it inspire other entrepreneurs who want to start their own purpose-driven business. This is why we partnered with Harvard Business Review Press for G.O.A.T. Wisdom.