Adesse New York
Suzanne Roberta, co-founder and CEO
Headquarters: New York
Founded: 2015
Big News: Appeared on QVC last month on The Find with Shawn Killinger 

How did Adesse New York come to be? I began my beauty career in product development in NYC right after graduating from college. I was working with brands that included Estée Lauder, Origins, Revlon and Avon, and we were at the early beginnings of the clean green beauty movement. Working in beauty, there is always the desire to look pulled together and that included a beautiful manicure, so I wore hard gels because they looked beautiful and didn’t chip.

I was always bothered by the idea that we were creating clean skin care and color cosmetics, but were still willing to apply harmful, damaging products to our nails. My nails became severely damaged from the gels and every time I tried to get out of the viscous gel cycle, I would look for products that could help reverse the damage and found very few options.

And, what I did find contained harsh, toxic chemicals. My choices were so limited to either use harmful “repair products” or go back to the gels. It was embarrassing that my nails were in such poor condition, so to get back the confidence that having beautiful nails gave me, I went back to using gels and the whole cycle continued.

My “aha” moment came later in 2014 when I really looked at the nail category and still, years later, there had been no significant breakthroughs or advancements in the space. Women were still getting harmful gel manicures, acrylics and dips. I would talk to women and ask why they were willing to endure the pain and damage these products were causing and they really couldn’t answer the question. What I noticed was their response was mostly embarrassment and shame. It was exactly the response I had years ago when I was using these products. I thought, why isn’t anyone disrupting this category? Why isn’t anyone focusing on nails when there is such an incredible opportunity to create something that meets the high standards in place for clean skin care and color cosmetics? So, I decided to do it.

What makes Adesse different? The biggest differentiator for Adesse is our “High Tech Skin Care for Nails” approach to product development. I wanted to create a nail care routine, similar to what we already do for our skin, so I worked with my R&D team to find high performance skin care ingredients that were effective and solved a range of problems from thinning, cracking, splitting, dehydration, discoloration and difficulty growing. I also wanted to give my clients beautiful NYC-inspired nail colors that reflected the iconic beauty of the city, but were also clean, 12 free, vegan and cruelty free. I infuse our color polish with a blend of natural and organic bamboo extract, shea and argon oil, so nails are always getting a bit of treatment and care while they are polished. 

Another critical point of differentiation is how our products are made. Coming from contract manufacturing, I have seen every type of facility from the most basic to the most technologically advanced and I am obsessive of how products are made. We focus as much on our manufacturing processes as we do on ingredient sourcing and product development.

In the early days, what was the biggest hurdle? Finding the right contract manufacturing partner who understood my vision for the brand and was willing to take the risk of working with a small start-up and produce small production runs. I overcame their objections because I was very clear on the vision and positioning of the brand and what I wanted to create. I think they saw and understood my vision and decided to take a chance on me.

Sum up your first year in one sentence. We launched in mid 2015 and sold 7,000 bottles and by the end of the year, had secured a partnership with Ipsy and purchase orders totaling just under one million units, which was very exciting.

And now, 2019. 2019 began with a feature on ABC’s The View and we gained tremendous exposure which allowed us to pivot and focus our marketing toward home shopping and additional online retailers.

Who in the business world do you admire? I really admire Steve Jobs, because he was a visionary who wanted to change the way we interact with technology. I view Adesse as a technology company operating in the beauty space because so much of what we do is using the technology of ingredients, manufacturing and data to disrupt the nail category. We’re changing the way consumers think about and treat their nails and we give them products to solve their problems.