My first job taught me three lessons that have stayed with me ever since: how you treat people matters, the power of conversation, and the importance of taking risks. These lessons began when I was 14 and my family bought and ran a motel together in Alexandria, Virginia.
To understand the impact of this job, let me first take you back to 1935 in Vaso, Gujarat, India, where my father, Pramod Rambhai Amin, was born.
My father faced hardship early in life. Both his father and brother passed away when he was young and much of the responsibilities of supporting the household fell to him early. He paused his college studies to take care of the family farm, yet he remained determined to create a better life for himself and his family. He earned a law degree, practicing law for a while, before he shifted his focus to the business world. His career at an Indian gas company took him from India to Kenya, where I was born. When I was a child, we immigrated to the U.S., where he continued in the gas industry and later in educational publishing.
When I was 14, my parents took every penny they had to buy the motel. My father had spent years traveling for work, and he wanted a change where the family could all be together. It was a dilapidated property, but we felt confident we could turn it around. And we did.
Everything I know about the fundamentals of business, from cash flow to economic profit, came from helping my family run the motel. And more importantly, I learned what leadership looks like in practice. My father instilled in me that when you treat your employees with care and respect, they in turn create a meaningful experience for the customers. Every day, we rolled up our sleeves to clean rooms, working alongside staff, creating zero distance between owners and employees. I saw firsthand that how you treat people makes a difference. We attended weddings for their children of our motel managers and celebrated milestones together.
Working with my father also taught me the importance of being humble and hungry. He never turned down the opportunity to strike up a conversation, with our guests, employees, vendors, or anyone else he encountered. He understood that listening creates trust, insight and opportunity.
That same spirit continues to shape how we operate at e.l.f. Beauty today. What makes our culture unique is that people lead with kindness and respect for one another. Performance and empathy are not opposing forces. In my experience, the strongest teams are built on both.
An example is how we innovate at e.l.f. Every two weeks, we host a product review that we make an open ticket. Anyone in the company can join. Some of our best ideas have come from people out of product development. Recently someone working in inventory planning shared insights on a new product that truly stood out. Great ideas can come from anywhere when people feel empowered to contribute.
Which leads me to the final lesson on risk. Growth happens outside of comfort zones. My father took a chance when he moved continents and later invested in the motel. The founders of e.l.f. Beauty, fittingly, a father and son, Alan and Joey Shamah, also took a chance. They knew nothing about cosmetics but knew there was whitespace in the category for quality cosmetics to be more accessible, so they began selling products for every eye, lip and face (e.l.f.) on the internet for $1 each. That conviction became the foundation for disruption.
I’ve tried to carry that instinct forward at e.l.f. by fostering an environment where risk-taking is encouraged and ownership is shared across the organization. Every e.l.f. employee receives equity from day one at every level, everywhere in the world, meaning our culture is truly built on One Team, One Dream.
Could my father have predicted the ripple effects of buying our motel? Maybe not. But in doing so, he raised the bar for what was possible, inspiring me to disrupt norms, shape culture and connect communities in a meaningful way, both as a leader and personally. Now, as my son Dhruv steps into his own journey as a founder, I see how far those ripples have traveled. It takes me back to that first job working alongside my father. I feel grateful for that beginning and for the example he set every day.