Sahajan Founder Reflects On Being Ahead Of Her Time Over Last 10 Years

A self-proclaimed “overnight success,” Sahajan founder and CEO Lisa Mattam admits her road to a decade-long business didn’t come without its doubts. As a pioneer in Ayurvedic skincare, who also helped lead the clean beauty movement, Mattan’s niche wasn’t initially taken seriously. At the time, “Ayurvedic beauty”—comprised of powerful South Asian plants and herbs, including turmeric, neem, saffron and ashwagandha—was no more than a trivial buzz term.

Humble Beginnings As A Niche Beauty Brand

“I would go to meetings, and people wouldn’t respond to my phone calls,” the entrepreneur said during a one-on-one chat at Sahajan’s 10-year anniversary brunch in June. “They said to me, ‘You have to understand, everybody goes on vacation and comes back saying they found a special mud and want to become a beauty founder.’ The appetite for indie beauty wasn’t there in the same way. Navigating formulation, production, labs and all of that was really unique. When we first started, it was really hard to get a lab that would work with me.”

And when she did finally find a lab that would work with her, Mattam would unknowingly go on to learn her biggest lesson of the time.

“We had this awful moment when I finally found my first partner,” she recalled. “We were getting ready to launch, and we were navigating through the formulas. Our bestseller right now is our Nourish Crème Riche, which is a very rich, thick cream, and they weren’t getting it right. So I emailed them, and I asked if they could send me how to make it. Because maybe the issue was that it’s been heated for too long or mixed for too long. And they wrote back and told me I don’t own my formulas anymore. They said they were theirs and I don’t get to see them.”

It was then that Mattam realized running a business wasn’t something she could do solo.

“I looked at my legal agreement, and it was very clear that I had my formulas,” she said, noting the power struggle that came from working independently versus her 17-year history under Johnson & Johnson. “I sat with a lawyer, and they told me it was clear I was in the right. But they also said I wasn’t realistically going to take them to court. They told me I’m not going to navigate this. So I basically had to recruit that power. I brought in someone from the J&J incubators to come to meetings with me to get my formulas back. It was a really, really difficult time. I went through a whole process to get that back, and I think the biggest lesson for me was recruiting advocates, recruiting supporters, recruiting an advisory board. All those things became fundamental in order for us to be in this game.”

A Major Industry Breakthrough

Despite some stressful steps, Mattam found a home at clean beauty haven Credo in 2015, when it debuted in San Francisco. Since then, the Ayurvedic beauty category has made mainstream waves.

Luxury hair and skincare brand Ranavat launched on Sephora’s website in February 2022, expanding to brick-and-mortar a year-and-a-half later. Meanwhile, minimalist Mango People was the first Ayurveda-inspired makeup brand to hit Sephora in August 2023. The category has also seen success with haircare’s Fable & Mane and Shaz & Kiks (also both at Sephora).

And Mattam herself, made moves in 2023, becoming the first Ayurvedic skincare brand to partner with Marriott Luxury, whose properties are The St. Regis, W Hotels, The Ritz-Carlton and J.W. Marriott. In March 2024, the Toronto native saw shelves stocked with Sahajan at Sephora Canada, making it the retail giant’s first Ayurvedic brand.

“I needed other brands to come into the category, to really build it as a category through us,” Mattam said. “So I think if I were to launch it today, it would be better recognized. Interestingly, however, some of the things I set up back then were among the first. We were one of, if not the first clean brand in Credo to have clinical research. I always came at it with a very scientific platform, and so I don’t think any of that would change, because I’m still science-first. But I think the environment would be different.”

The category evolution is how she believes she even ended up at her anniversary celebration destination. A full Ayurveda-inspired brunch, with accompanying hot beverages, was served at Calabra—a stunning restaurant at the Santa Monica Proper Hotel in Los Angeles.

“We were part of the education,” Mattam said. “Even just sitting even here at this hotel, where they have an Ayurvedic salon and Ayurvedic menu that didn’t exist before. It’s a gorgeous location, but it has this beautiful connection to Ayurveda that makes it extra special. Those things didn’t exist 10 years ago.”

Investor Support From Unlikely Sources

Since becoming seemingly accepted by mainstream beauty, Sahajan took things to the next level. For starters, in November 2023, Mattam closed her first round of equity funding, led by Ridgeline Ventures, which also included a handful of executives and other bold-faced names from various industries. Among them? An unsuspecting Yvonne Strahovski, the Emmy-nominated actress who played Serena Waterford on The Handsmaid’s Tale.

“I’m not your typical product girl,” Strahovski said during a one-on-one chat. “Usually, if I get handed a bag of stuff, I pass it on to the nearest person because I’m really particular and extremely minimal about what I put on my face.”

Taken by the neutral packaging and overnight results of Sahajan’s Radiance Face Serum, Strahovski was sold.

“I remember looking in the mirror the next morning, and wondered if it was just my imagination,” she recalled. “I thought, do I actually look different? And then I used it consistently for a week, and I got a lot of compliments. And I thought, this is an insanely amazing product.”

While Strahovski’s appreciation for the product was instant, her decision to be involved with the brand wasn’t rash.

“It was this was very strange, organic, intuitive process,” she said, estimating it was two years before making financial moves. “I just kept thinking about the product. Finally I reached out to my representatives and asked if I can connect somehow with Lisa, and maybe we can partner together. We met on Zoom, and the idea of actually investing in the company came up. I’d never done anything like that before, and this is the only time that I have. I remember thinking, wow, this is such a great opportunity.”

Embarking On A Decade In Business

Next? The rebrand. Just in time for the big 1-0, Mattam launched a saffron-infused Eternal Glow Cream, in conjunction with her biggest task of all—fresh packaging.

“This was something that had been on my mind actually for years,” she said, of the bolder, sleeker look. “Having the investor support became critical to moving to that next step. The new look and feel still reflects our ethos, but the packaging for a clean indie brand 10 years ago is different. Because brands are pretty much clean as just the bar, every brand should have to take elegant packaging into consideration, too. Our new external packaging is more shelf-shoppable, whereas 10 years ago, brands were much more muted if you think of Clarins and the bigger brands.”

Putting efforts into evolution made sense for the Mattam, especially after a banner year. According to data provided by the brand, Sahajan ended 2024 with 100% year-over-year growth, with direct-to-consumer sales increasing by 100%. Said sales account for 80% of Sahajan’s business, with retail making up the balance.

As for the future? It’s anyone’s guess. After all, Mattam didn’t expect clean beauty and Ayurveda to take off the way it did.

“The landscape has changed,” she said, reflecting on her Ayurvedic skincare journey. “We’ve built this incredible community. Ten years ago, nobody was talking about clean. And now it’s table stakes. It’s almost like what took us here is different than what’s going to take us to the next 10 years.”