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Manna Kadar Beauty Cosmetics

047: How I Built My International Beauty Brand – Manna Kadar

Manna Kadar is a 20-year beauty industry veteran who has developed a line of long wear, double-duty items that minimizes the makeup application process to 7 minutes or less. Manna Kadar Cosmetics, a multi-tasking and innovative product line, has been seen on E! News, Good Morning America, The Today Show, and Extra TV. The award winning Beauty Simplified System separates the makeup application process in 3 steps; Step 1-Prime, Step 2-Polish, and Step 3-Perfect, with each product clearly indicates which step the product should be used in directly on the product. In addition to giving back through her cosmetics company, Manna is active in various philanthropic organizations, such as Board Member Goodwill, Board Member USC Alumni Association, Woman in Business Chairperson, and Fuel the Planet. She is also a Member of Gen Next, an invitation-only organization of successful individuals dedicated to learning about and becoming engaged with the most pressing challenges facing future generations.

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

  • How Manna bought a beauty supply store while she was in high school.
  • How she opened seven retails stores in six years before selling the chain.
  • The inspiring journey of building Manna Kadar Beauty into an international beauty brand.
  • Why Manna Kadar partners with Birchbox, ipsy, FabFitFun, Glossybox, BoxyCharm, and other beauty boxes.

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Interview Transcript

Manna, thank you so much for taking time to hang today.

Thanks for having me. I’m looking forward to being on your podcast.

Yeah, so I want to know, when did you first discover makeup and beauty products? Whether it was as a kid or a young person, take me back to that time.

Yeah, so it’s a pretty funny story. My mom is actually pretty anti-makeup.

Okay.

And so, I discovered makeup at a pretty early age and I was always interested in it. More so, I think because it was such a no-no.

Sure.

So, I likely discovered it probably in junior high and I’d run to the drugstore and buy all this makeup and put it on on the way to school; my mom’s friends used to drive us to school. And then take it all off by the time I got home…

No way.

So I looked the same. I don’t know if my mom knows this to this day, but I guess now she does.

So, you had your own money that she had given you for whatever reason or birthday money or who knows what, and then you just made it happen?

Yeah, exactly. You know, it wasn’t super expensive makeup. So, nothing high-end, just very inexpensive drugstore makeup, but that was where I kind of picked up the first new pieces and really started the foundation of where I am today.

And when did you start to wear makeup out in the open? Like where she would see you and that was okay?

Where it was finally acceptable? I remember doing this song and dance with makeup and taking it on and off until high school. And I think finally, I think I was like sixteen or something and I think finally I was like, “Okay, look. This is what it’s going to be. So, we’re going to have to work with it,” and she was okay with it. So, fortunately she was more openminded by that point in time.

Man, that is a lot of the behind the scenes makeup action happening right there. That’s pretty funny.

I was committed. I was really committed to my look.

That’s great. How would you describe your look back then?

It was bad. It was bad. I look back at pictures. It was trendy for what it was back in the day, but this is circa 1996 and back then we had dark lipliner, dark lips, big bangs, lots of hairspray.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, so think like Paula Abdul kind of. That kind of look but with just really dark lipstick.

So, good.

I just found a picture the other day and it was so bad it was good.

That’s awesome. My wife – I’m probably a little bit older than you are. We grew up in the late eighties. High school graduated, ’89 for her, ’91 for me. So, I mean she had massive hair, massive bangs and I love those pictures.

That’s what you fell in love with, right?

It is. It is kind of weird because I did fall in love with that and now, I’m always – she pulls her hair back because she’s a kindergarten teacher, gets it out of her face or whatever. And then when she puts it down, I’m like, “Oh, man. You look so beautiful.” She’s like, “You always say that,” wanting it down. So, how did you then initially get involved in the makeup industry itself? What was that timeline like?

Well, okay so right around the same time in my late teens I had an opportunity to purchase a retail cosmetic store at a local mall here in Orange County. It was really just happenstance, where I was working at an office where I interacted with quite a few of the customers or clients, really, that called in. I really got to know one of the clients well and he had purchased this – or built this cosmetic store for his wife…

Okay.

Who really didn’t even run it. So, he did not want to run it himself and he was looking for someone to take it over. He did not know how young I was. Again, late teens. He said, “Hey, you seem like a bright person. Do you want to purchase this cosmetic store?” So, this is at the Brea Mall in the Nordstrom wing and so I said, “Okay,” without knowing what I was really getting into. I said, “Okay.” So, it was basically all the money that I had saved…

No way.

From Chinese New Year and Christmases and birthdays and what-not. It was – I would call it like an inventory or an asset sale at the time.

And you had a lease? There was a lease obviously on the store? And then your name went then on the lease, I assume?

Right, I actually don’t know how that was done in retrospect. Because I didn’t have any credit cards at the time and probably very little credit, but I think I just assumed a lease, rather than embarking on a full lease. Actually, now that I think about it, that’s likely how I skirted the system.

And how many years did you run that store?

In six years, I grew – I took the first store – the profits from the first store and rolled it into the next location at Mission Viejo Mall and so on and so forth. So, by the time I was done with this whole adventure, it was seven stores in six years that the chain grew to.

That is out of control. And were you – did you even graduate from high school before you started this?

No, I didn’t. So, I had not graduated from high school yet. I was -. You know, I was so young, I didn’t really even recognize the risk that I was taking at the time. And that being said though, I was always a bit entrepreneurial prior to this. I had – I don’t know, people won’t remember this, but Costco before it was Costco today was Price Club and they used to sell vending machines there. So, I was with my mom and I said, “Oh, I’m going to buy a vending machine and start a little vending machine route.” So, I had to go to different businesses and propose my vending machine services. I even went to my mom’s post office and one of the machines I serviced was at her post office. Another was at an automotive place and so on. So, I think I always had that entrepreneurial bug from a young age and this was just an opportunity to take it to that next level.

That is unbelievable. I’ve never heard of such a thing. You’ve got six stores in seven years? Or seven stores in six years?

Seven stores in six years. And then I was also – what made it more challenging was, I was also going to USC full time studying finance. So, I would take all of my classes in the morning and then be done by eleven or twelve and then rush out to do my job – my real job. But just trying to balance both school and the business at the same time.

Sure, and were these all the same name business? Was it the same brand?

Yes. Yes, they were all called True Colors.

True Colors, okay. And what – did you end up selling the business or what was the transition for you?

Yeah, I ended up selling the business. You know, in the retail space, if anyone’s ever worked in retail, you would know it’s very, very grueling. It’s about 362 days a year, between eighty and ninety hours a week and you’re interfacing with the public and your pool of talent is a little bit challenging as far as the employee pool. So, all of those things combined just make it a very rigorous business to belong to. So, I was really burnt out but with going to school full time and opening all these stores and traveling from Orange County to Vegas on a regular basis seven days a week, I didn’t take any time off. I was pretty burnt out. So, right before I graduated college, which was in 2002, I sold the chain. And this was right after 9-11, so there was a lot of concern with the economy and people were just not spending. They weren’t going out shopping and you could really see the decline in, at least, consumer spending space. The malls were just completely empty. Completely empty. So, while the books were good and the numbers were good, I thought, “Okay, this is a really good time to get out of this,” and so, I sold the chain.

Okay, and then did you start Manna Kadar Beauty immediately or was there a delay? Tell me about how did you parlay that experience in cosmetics into starting your own brand.

You know, it’s really interesting. So, if you can imagine, I’m twenty-one at this time and I have my shiny new finance degree and I think, “Okay, what do I do now? I’ve only known running my own business for the last six years.” So, I talked to one of my girlfriends that I went to college with and she’s like, “Well, I’m going into this credit analyst program at a bank. Do you want to try to apply there?” And I said, “Okay, sure,” without really knowing what a credit analyst was and what banking truly was, beyond -. I thought of banking as, here’s the teller and here’s your cash and deposit your cash. But I applied for this credit analyst position in this small corporate banking and I got the job. And so, before I knew it, I was deep into corporate finance. And so, I stayed in corporate banking for the next four or five years – five or six years, actually. You know, it was such a great learning experience in that I really got to see the corporate structure and just really learn the business side of things. Not like the owner side of things, like where you’re in it, you’re working the business. But the business side of things where you’re looking at financial statements and you understand what all of these numbers mean and how that really affects the business. So, I really was able to see both sides of the coin. Both entrepreneurial side and then also the business side. So, it was a little different as far as what my comfort zone was in my ideal work environment. I really enjoy a lot of autonomy. So, as great as a career as I had built in corporate finance, I was just over doing the spreadsheets and the reporting and then it was a little bit stuffy of an environment too. You have to wear suits every day and back in the day they still wanted you to wear pantyhose, which I was not about for those reasons alone. So, I needed to transition out. I really did need to transition out of there. So, there was an opportunity to purchase a tanning salon and I thought, “Okay, well why don’t I buy a business,” and in my mind I thought a tanning salon just operated itself. You have a bunch of machines. You have an associate upfront checking people in and that’s it. I could still do my job and operate this tanning salon. Well, little did I know, or maybe I had been out of the entrepreneurial world for so long that nothing really runs itself, right? So, before I knew it, I had two full time jobs again and I really had to choose one. Was it the corporate banking job that was really comfortable and you have all these holidays off and the compensation was really great. Or do I take on the challenge of another business? And where I really felt I was gravitating more towards was the business. It was fun. I found it a good challenge as far as really growing revenues and client acquisitions and all of that good stuff. So, I said “goodbye” to corporate banking and then “hello” to this new tanning salon that I purchased.

Tanning salon, alright. So, do you personally still tan, Manna?

Well, here’s the thing. I see where this is going. I see where this is going. So, you have to remember this is in 2006 or ’07.

Oh, don’t – this is not – yeah. This is – come on, ten years ago, like that made a difference? Come on.

Yes, it really did. And well, here’s what I was able to capitalize on. So, going back to your question, this is where people really started to be conscious of sun protection. They had, “Tanning is bad,” so there was this whole new business opportunity in sunless tanning. So, spray tans, custom airbrushing. So, that is really where I put the focus on for the business, because at the time, tanning salons were really just old school. Kind of tacky, sold these bikinis and random tchotchkes. So, what I did was is, I turned my tanning salon into a spa experience where you walked in and it really felt like a high-end spa. So, you can get your custom airbrush tanning there. Believe it or not, there was still a lot of people tanning at the time.

But what differentiated my salon was, I started to add other services. So, eyelash extensions at the time was very, very new. So, I was one of the first that started to do eyelash extensions. We did threading, we did facials. So, we tried to make it as much as a one stop shop as possible. So, it was really cool. I mean, I was really able to grow the business quite substantially in a short amount of time. And so, I parlayed that into another purchase of another tanning salon. Because I knew the model and I knew how to do it. So, I wanted to expand on that and I found another salon to purchase.

So, take me to the point where you decided to begin to manufacture your own products. How did that conversation begin to happen?

Well, it really started at the tanning salon. We had a very large space in the lobby and I felt like it was not being utilized properly as far as -. I wanted to turn that square footage into revenue generating opportunities. So, I decided to put kind of like a mini version of what I had in my cosmetic stores, in the lobby. So, you could go there for retail products and purchase skincare or you can purchase beauty accessories, eyelashes, etcetera. And there was an opportunity to put makeup there. I always wanted to start a makeup line but I just never pulled the trigger on it. And for whatever reason, I felt I was compelled that this was the time to do it. I had the retail space to feature the items. So, rather than putting someone else’s brand there, I think a little bit – I was a little naïve and I said, “Okay, well why don’t I just put my own brand there?” I didn’t really think it through all the way as far as everything that would entail from that point thereafter. So, I met with a PR company and they said, “Oh, you know what? For this really hefty retainer every month, we’ll get you in all of these long lead magazines,” which for people that remember, there are these paper things called magazines that you used to read and you used to hold them and actually read paper. And there were all of these placements that you had for products that beauty editors would feature and focus on in very established and very prestigious magazines and that would drive consumers to purchase the products online. Well, at the time, online was very new and so he said, “Well, we’ll get all these placements for you and then everyone will just go to your website and they’ll just buy.” So, I thought I had this thing figured out; paying this guy pretty hefty PR dollars and that was my plan for success. Was just to hire the guy who was going to do all the work and then I would just be sipping champagne on a yacht somewhere, but that did not happen. So, really, after I recognized that I would have to do all of the work as far as building the brand, I had to work on the marketing message probably six or seven times before I got it right, as far as figuring out what is going to resonate with the consumer. What differentiates the product from other items? Why women would choose – or men, would choose to purchase this brand of products over any other?

What were some of the early efforts that you remember in terms of that marketing or the communication that maybe just didn’t resonate as well as you had hoped?

You know, I think part of it was the packaging. It was kind of just like very basic packaging, but the formulas within the packaging was very high-end and very performance based. But the outside packaging didn’t really match or tell the story for what was really inside of the items. So, we had to take a look at the packaging and make sure it was a high-end feel all the way around, so that we can justify the price points that we were asking consumers to pay for the product. And then beyond that, I think there needed to be an education piece for the consumer. If they picked up the product, they would understand what the brand was all about and so that’s where we came up with – we have a three step process, it’s called our Beauty Simplified process, where all the items have the step one or step two or step three on the item. Step one is prime. Step two is polish. Step three is perfect. In those six years that I was in the retail space, I had a great pleasure of just spending so much time with all of our customers that had come to the door and really there were a couple things that were always a common denominator. Number one is everyone loves makeup; they want to look and feel beautiful. But number two, they just didn’t really know how to do it. There was always a problem they were trying to fix, whether it – under-eye circles or a blemish or anti-aging or even just down to self-esteem. They just wanted something to help them feel better about themselves. So, I took that into mind. And then the other thing was, how many times have you heard someone say, “You know, I just don’t have the time to take care of myself. I don’t have the time to put makeup on,” etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Like, they’re not taking the time for themselves because they feel like it takes too long. It’s almost too daunting.

Right.

Right? So, we really wanted to get this three step process into – we call it the Seven Minute Face. So, all of the items in the line are long-wear, double duty, multi-functional. So, for example our lip product has a primer and a lip-gloss and a lip stain that’s built in. So, it’s three different products into one. To break it down for you, David – what that means for you…

Oh, no. No, no, no, I read up on this. No, no, no, I read up on this.

You understand? Oh, good. So, good.

The differentiating factor of the lip stain is very important to Manna Kadar beauty, I’ve understood this.

Well, thank you for taking the time to do the research. So, for just in layman’s terms, really you apply the makeup once and you have very minimal touch-up throughout the day. So, we’ll use lip-gloss again as an example, you put it on and you’ll see women who are using other lip products, here is lip-gloss again an hour later, an hour later, an hour later and it’s just kind of a pain to continue to touch-up all day long. So, this lip product I have, it keeps your lips moisturized and it stays on. Again, very minimal reapplication, so you put your makeup on in seven minutes or less and then you’re done. So, we’re trying to give women that time back in their lives, where they’re not having to spend all this time putting themselves together. And I think most women can carve out seven minutes to look and feel your best throughout the day.

Absolutely. Take me back to the manufacturing process. Did you just find a manufacturer? Like, you know what I mean? That feels so daunting. I know you had been in the industry so many years but what was that process like for you?

Well, at first, I private labelled. So, for those who don’t know what private labelling is, it basically is using someone’s formula and packaging, initially to get product out. And the reason why I did that is because the minimums to order were very low. So, for example you could order one piece of something, six pieces of something, twelve pieces. So, the financial investment was minimal at the time. It was still significant but minimized. Because a normal manufacturing run has a minimum order quantity of five thousand units for one single item for one single shade. So, as you can see, you’re kind of hedging your risk a little bit there. So, that just got my feet wet into understanding formulations a little bit more. Understanding what went on with this process, because my experience was only on the retail side, not on the manufacturing side, which is an entirely different beast in and of itself. So, I started out with private label and from there I started to gain more and more accounts and really the demand was there. So, I switched over to doing my own manufacturing runs and that was pretty scary because you’re going from a one piece minimum to a five thousand piece minimum per shade. So, not only do you have…

That is a huge deal. That is a huge deal. Yeah, I’ve done some manufacturing myself in China, actually in plush toys and in costumes, which is radically different obviously than making. Were you involved in the QC process? Or you’re just trusting this organization that you’ve outsourced it to? I would just be pulling my hair out. Oh, my goodness.

Well, I think again it’s one of those ignorance is bliss kind of things. I think if you were to ask any business owner, you learn a lot of lessons the hard and expensive way. So, to some of this – some of these questions that you’re asking, for example, like the QC part of it; I did not recognize or know all of the things that were required for QC. So, I would think I had things covered and then something was not recognized. I’ll give you an example. So, I have a customer that was purchasing my product in France. And so, I was like, “Okay, cool. Here’s the product.” The manufacturer knew that these items needed to go to France and this is 90,000 units of an item. Well, it got stopped at the France customs because it wasn’t number one, EU certified. So, any product that goes into Europe, needs to go through a certification process to get certified to go into Europe. And then number two, for products going into France, it needs to be translated into French. So, I did not have either one of those items done. It is really funny now. Like, looking in retrospect but can you imagine getting that call saying, “Oh, you know your 90,000 units, well it’s not compliant with the standards and you’re going to have re-label and redo the entire batch.” So, that was quite a learning experience. But that’s an extreme example of learning a lesson.

Sure, people are going to charge you -, “We’re going to charge you for storage fees until you come pick them up.”

Oh, sure and then what do you do with the product then? Entrepreneurship is so interesting because I always liken it to being the ultimate problem solver, because you don’t have – a solution is never failing. That’s not an option for you. So, you have to figure out everything possible to succeed or to turn that obstacle into an opportunity or at least to neutralize it and have a net positive or a net neutral effect. Right? So, it’s constantly problem solving on a daily basis. And that was just another example of, “Here’s a problem.” “Okay, let’s fix it. What do we need to do to fix it?”

There’s always a solution. That’s what I tell my kids, “There’s always a solution, you’ve just to figure it out.”

There always is a solution. Yeah, exactly.

So, now you have six lines of beauty products. Is that correct?

That is correct. So, we have two cosmetics brands, one is called Manna Kadar Cosmetics, the other is called Goddess Beauty. Then we have the men’s line called Mason Man, named after my son. And then we have a pet line called Haute Dog or “Hot” dog. We have the bath and body line and then we have a maternity line as well.

That is amazing. I know one of the ways that you’ve been marketing your products is through beauty boxes. Why did you choose to go that route and how is that going for you?

So, beauty boxes kind of starting gaining some momentum around the time I started my company about ten years ago. So, I first partnered with Birchbox and they were one of the first beauty boxes that were out there, if not the first beauty box. I can’t confirm that. But we worked with beauty boxes early on because there is no better way to have a customer experience from a beauty perspective, than to actually see, feel, touch and experience the actual product itself.

If you look at – even online now, you can see a product online and there’s reviews. “It’s great.” “It’s not great,” what have you. But if you have the product in your hand yourself, you can see the texture. You know how it applies on your skin. You can see if it works for you. And not only that, you’re getting to the hands of beauty enthusiasts. Anyone who pays a monthly subscription for beauty, really has to love beauty. They’re not just casual…

Beauty lovers. So, you have people – these eyeballs, for a very engaged audience. So, rather than budgeting for more traditional marketing. At the time it was print ads. Even today, there’s a lot of different options; SEO, social media type of ad buys. We still find the best way to engage in an audience and to really get in front of these customers, is through these beauty box subscription companies.

And how many boxes have you been in?

We have been in probably all of the big ones. For sure we’ve been in all of the big ones; Birchbox, GLOSSYBOX, Ipsy, FabFitFun, BOXYCHARM, you name it. We’ve partnered with many of them, they have such great business models and all of them are very, very different…

In how they reach their audience and who their audience actually is. It’s really interesting just from a business perspective to see how that business has evolved. Because it’s become a very busy space. So again, it’s much like my business. How do you differentiate yourself from the rest. Yeah, so it’s been a great partnership. We still continue to do very, very, very large campaigns with each one of these companies and I don’t see that going down any time soon.

Now, I know from chatting with people that work at your company, that people are really important to you and there’s just this value for people. And I’m going to say as an outsider, you are a pretty glamorous person. You live a pretty glamorous life. I follow you on Instagram and we’ll link to your Instagram account, it’s public. You are – like the amount of flowers that I see on your Instagram, I mean, I’m so jealous. It’s just flowers constantly. I’m always showing my daughter, she’s nineteen. I’m like, “Look at this. Look at all these flowers. This is just amazing.” Gorgeous. I just am imagining you’re going to sleep surrounded in flower petals or something. I don’t know how your husband would like that. So, you are a pretty glamorous person and for whatever reason, my own prejudice does not connect that with a deep love, care and affection for people but I sense that that’s in you. There’s a deep love for the people in your business. Is that true? How does that play out on a day to day? Where did that come from within you? Talk to me about this.

Yeah, so I think I have to give you some background. It’s really interesting, the perception that people gain from social media. I think you followed me on my personal page, which has all – I call it, “The good stuff.” You see the real deal. So, it’s interesting what people perceive. So, what you’re seeing is what you think is a glamorous life, but I did not grow up that way at all. My mom was in a very abusive relationship when she had me. And so, we lived in Paris at the time and so my only memory of my father is him beating her. Like, I had the door just cracked open, I think I was two at the time or something like that. And so, I remember him just really – it was pretty excessive. So, I remember closing the door and Scotch taping the door because that was what I felt was a defense mechanism. So, she was really, really brave and we kind of left in the middle – she fled and we left in the middle of the night. It was me, my mom and my grandmother, and she had very, very little money to go off of to support three of us. And so, we went France to Switzerland and Switzerland to Hong Kong where my grandfather was. She ultimately wanted a better life for me and I think for a lot of the world, the US what people perceive to be the land of opportunity.

So, she, very, very consciously made the decision to come to the US. Again, without having very much money. Not knowing the language. So, she and my grandmother, when we first got here, we lived in the ghetto. We had drive-by shootings. We were involved in home invasion robberies ourselves. And so, I remember she would leave at like three or four in the morning to go work at a bakery and then after the bakery, she would go work at a pre-school. And then after the pre-school, she would go work at a restaurant. So, that’s what she did to get by. And my grandmother would sew items like piecemeal. So, every belt that she sewed was twenty five cents or whatever, and I would have to help with the process. Making sure that the corners of the belt were really sharp and crisp and I would a little chopstick to make sure that those corners were sharp. And so, it was really a family effort. It was survival and we…

She really wanted to make sure that I have every opportunity to succeed. And so, I think part of what really drives me is not letting her – my mom’s efforts, my grandma’s efforts, really go unnoticed. I really need to recognize the sacrifices that she’s made, both personally, professionally, to allow me just the opportunity to get an education or to have these opportunities. And so, I think that’s what really, really pushed me at a young age and still continues to push me now. So, that’s where it kind of started and I think that’s where I get a lot of my – I really empathize with people. I really want to see the best in people and I really – for people that are around me and also my team, I want to make sure that they feel like family, they’re treated like family and we give them every opportunity to succeed in the company and in their personal lives as well.

Beautiful. Beautiful. I know this is an odd thing to say, but your grandmother is absolutely adorable – the photos that you post of her.

She’s so cute. She’s ninety and she has the highest cheekbones and her skin is so taught and I think her secret is she’s always eaten really fresh food. So, vegetables are fresh prepared that day, fish is fresh prepared that day. So, there must be some secret sauce to what she has done to stay as youthful as she is.

That’s fun. So, just as a little bit of a turn in terms of a question for you, I know you’re involved in an organization called Gen Next and…

Yes.

It’s a business – it’s for business leaders, but it’s really focused on making an impact in the world. One, why did you join this organization and how has it impacted your own life?

You know, it’s really interesting. I always told myself, if and when I have the opportunity to give back, I would. When I was growing up, I was given all these opportunities that we would not have been able to pay for. So, for example there was a summer program where Southern California Edison had sent a group of high school students to a business program at USC for an entire summer. This is junior year leading into senior year of high school and so that really gave me this even more of – sorry, this is seventh grade going into eight grade. It gave me really a drive for business and really understanding it a bit more. There were all of these other corporations or people that had given me other opportunities like scholarships or other programs; reading programs, summer camps, cheerleading camps, you name it. I would not have been able to have all of the experiences and all of the supplemental learning that I had without the generosity of all of these different people or organizations. So, I recognize that and my mom has always been very philanthropic as well. She was not a high wage earner by any means, but I always saw her giving back wherever she could and for whatever amount she could give back. So, I think that was kind of the foundation of where I wanted to give back, and so Gen Next is that perfect combination of where you have these wonderful individuals and they are all tremendous business leaders and tremendously successful in their own rights. But we’re really brought together because we want to make the world a better place today and in the future in whatever ways we can; battling sex trafficking, education reform, counter-terrorism. You name it, the group is tackling things at really ground-level to the point where -. Well, to the point where the general audience wouldn’t know it and they will never know it because there are groups like Gen Next that are fighting on everyone’s behalf to maintain the standards of liberty, freedom, all of those things that we are able to enjoy today.

It is amazing.

No, it was just -. I was talking to another member and we were just so proud to be a part of this group because it is a C-based membership and he had a very similar background to what I had and I said, “Wow, the fact that we have the opportunity to participate and to make a difference at this level, especially coming from our backgrounds, was just so humbling and as we go through and do community service or even bigger things beyond just community service, it really is wonderful to see the impact that is has for the country, our community at large.”

That is – it is amazing what the organization is doing and we’ll make sure to link to Gen Next in the show notes as well. People want to purchase makeup, best URL is www.mannakadarcosmetics.com, is that correct?

That’s correct. And if they want to follow us on social, it’s @mannakadarbeauty on Instagram and if you’re interested in following me on social for the good meaty stuff, it’s @anna_with_an_m.

Oh, you definitely want to follow @anna_with_an_m. We will make sure that – especially if you like flowers and baby showers and birthday parties with lots of flowers, that’s the place to go because it’s absolutely pretty amazing. Manna, so fun to meet you and hear your story. Your story is inspiring and amazing and just – I think that we underestimate what we can accomplish as human beings and we even underestimate what young people can accomplish even as a fifteen, sixteen year old, as you demonstrated. So, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us.

Thank you for having me. I loved being on your show.


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thank you!