Katia Ameri

Katia Ameri is the CEO & Founder of Mirra, a skincare startup based in LA.

The Stanford graduate & venture capital vet behind Mirra explains how education became her

north star towards empowering women to heal their skin with confidence.  Katia had a vision with Mirra

and that was to empower women on a massive scale, Mirra now reach more

than 120,000 readers with in their skincare newsletter.

Interview with Katia Ameri, CEO & Founder of Mirra

Russ Turner - Can you tell us about Mirra, what it's all about and what makes it stand out?

Katia Ameri - Mirra was born out of necessity for me. 

Growing up, I dealt with a ton of different skin conditions like eczema and cystic acne. Wanting relief, I did what anyone in my situation would do - I visited doctors, listened to advice from beauty consultants, and bought expensive products that were branded for “sensitive skin” like mine. 

Despite my best efforts, though, all of these roads were a dead end. I was exhausted, my skin wasn’t improving, and I felt lost in a world that I didn’t feel really represented me. In fact, it was often the well-intentioned but off-base advice that hurt my skin the most, mainly because the information given wasn’t tailored for my specific needs. 

As I got older, my discomfort grew to shame, and it was then that I knew I couldn’t sit back and let this take over my life anymore. I needed to find a way to relate to my skin and treat it in a way that felt personal to my experience, not what I was told “should” work based on generalizations and misguided anecdotes. 

I began to comb over all the scientific studies I could find about skin health, soaking it all in and hoping that they’d eventually lead me to salvation. Although this wasn’t a perfect fix at first, after awhile I started to find answers that were true to what I was dealing with, and I felt good about applying this knowledge to my ritual. 

For the first time in forever, my skin began to heal; I was optimistic again. But on top of this newfound sense of hope, I was also gaining something much deeper than just a healthy complexion: true confidence through education & knowledge. 

After my ordeal, I knew I couldn’t be the only person who felt misunderstood by this industry. There had to be other people who had also suffered from bad advice, or who were led astray by branding that wasn’t inclusive of what they were really going through. 

That’s why I created Mirra: an all-encompassing, one stop encyclopedia for all things skincare, where you can feel empowered to learn how to take care of your own skin health & take back the control through informative, science-based articles. Before Mirra, there really wasn’t anything available that truly focused on representing all skin types (rather, “skin moods”, as we like to call them), and I feel really excited to continue providing a unique variety of educational resources to our 200,000+ subscribers. 

Have you ever faced difficult times and what did you do to overcome them?

Although my mission towards empowerment has always been clear, the road to where Mirra is today hasn’t been as straightforward. 

As with every other entrepreneur in the world, COVID-19 hit us hard. Nearly every plan I had mapped out for where I wanted to take this brand was washed away in an instant. It felt like I was starting from scratch, and for the first time I was honestly nervous for the future. 

I knew what I wanted to do with Mirra, but how was I going to pivot and still be able to achieve any of it? How was I going to overcome such an unprecedented time in human history and continue forward with my vision? 

Luckily, I have a great team of people around me, and I was able to harness their efforts and focus our attention to capitalize on what we’d already built. Most importantly, the Mirra community of subscribers was still there, so I revisited all of the valuable feedback I’d gained from them over the years. 

The biggest takeaway from this approach was that we needed to add more content. There was always another question or another situation that our readers were facing, which we could research and provide an answer for. This opened my eyes to an opportunity that I would’ve otherwise missed, and it really helped steer the ship for us. 

So, we bumped up the amount of content on our site inthemirra.com , reinvented our weekly newsletter, and got back in the lab to develop new & exciting ideas for our future expansion. 

Despite the unexpected setback that was 2020, I feel like Mirra as a whole came out the other side fairly unscathed and better than before, and all of us have a renewed sense of passion for what we’re doing. 

What's the best advice you could give to any aspiring entrepreneur?

It may sound redundant, but be open to change! Like I said before, we wouldn’t have found such success last year if we had forced our old plans in the new situation we found ourselves in. Letting go of what you think you have to do can sometimes lead you straight to what you actually need to do. Stay open and ready for anything. 

Besides that, learning to lean on others instead of taking it all on yourself is vital. I have friends and mentors who have taught me a lot about what it takes to be a successful leader, and one of the best pieces of advice I received from a trusted colleague is to delegate and release control of what you don’t need to hang onto; avoid being “in the weeds”, if you will. 

I was fortunate that I was able to add a few key players to my team in the last year, and it’s really enabled me to focus on the bigger picture of Mirra. Now that I’ve offloaded some of the smaller pieces of work, like content creation and branding, I’m able to help drive us further than if I were to continue doing it all myself, or if I was still getting overwhelmed by my workload. 

Being able to not just empower, but also trust my team with their individual responsibilities has allowed me more time to support these efforts and continue growing the brand from the top. It may sound cliché, but it’s true: teamwork truly does make the dream work. 

What legacy will you leave to the world?

If there’s anything I can do for that person, it’s to build a community of free thinkers who, like me, haven’t found a place in the beauty world that feels true to them. I want people from all walks of life to flock to Mirra in search of acceptance and actually find the answers to their ailments through our articles, no matter who they are. Although we’re not 100% there yet, we’re making a ton of really good progress, and I’m very proud of that. 

So, I guess my answer is this: at the end of the day, I want my legacy to speak for itself. Mirra is not just for me - it’s for all of us. It’s a home for everyone and everything related to skincare, and when it’s all said and done, I hope it makes someone feel just as safe and understood as my own pursuit of education made me feel. I won’t stop trying until it does, and we’d love if you joined us along the way! 

Follow Katia & the Mirra mission on social media: 

INSTAGRAM - https://www.instagram.com/katiaameri

TWITTER - https://twitter.com/katiaameri

PINTEREST - https://www.pinterest.com/inthemirra/_created/