What does it cost to build the company you want while you are still rebuilding yourself?

In this episode of Fuel for Female Founders, Andrea sits down with Allyse Cirillo, Founder and CEO of SAINT Jō, the clean beauty brand she launched after fifteen years developing product for fashion and intimates brands. Allyse spent most of her career treating what she calls a woman’s outer layer, bras and shapewear, and in one stretch took a shapewear company from 25 million to 400 million in three years. It was not her company. When COVID had her building someone else’s business from her couch, she started asking what she was actually serving.

Allyse and Andrea trace what she did next, and the sequence matters for anyone still holding a paycheck. She stayed in the job another year and a half, learned the beauty category from a naturopathic doctor, chemists and trade shows, and only left when a manufacturer offered to produce for her and take payment once she started selling. She built SAINT Jō from the ground up while losing 80 pounds. The product decisions came out of that: numbered bottles so nobody has to guess the order, three minutes morning and night, a routine a woman will actually keep.

This conversation goes well beyond skincare. Allyse is direct about the part she did not arrive knowing, which is marketing, and about hiring a fractional CMO who was better at it than she was. She hires for soft skills because the customer can feel whether the team is aligned. She talks about knowing your funding options six months before you need them, about walking up to strangers at a major industry event and making connections instead of leaving with nothing but a hotel lobby story, and about why corporate is not a lesser path. Her closing ask is small and doable: meet one new person every month, and if you have a question, raise your hand and ask it.

This episode is for the woman who is building something while still holding a job, who is tired of sitting on the sidelines and is ready to act on her own product idea without waiting for permission from a title.