#HerImpact: From Pharmacist to Founder, Lisabeth Braun’s Leap of Faith and Journey to Scale
Endeavor Entrepreneur Lisabeth Braun created Brazil’s first compounding pharmacy in the 1970s. The business grew and turned into Dermage, a dermocosmetics industry that produces hundreds of tailor-made items for Brazilian consumers.
Endeavor’s #HerImpact series is part of our ongoing commitment to increase gender diversity within the Endeavor network. #HerImpact is devoted to elevating the voices, sharing the perspectives, and showcasing the professional expertise of women in Endeavor’s global network. Learn more about how you can get involved with Women in High Impact Entrepreneurship at Endeavor here.
The Beetle was a shade of avocado green, a fashionable car in the late ’70s. The driver was a pharmacist and civil servant, but she dreamed of new horizons when it came to her career. If Lisabeth Braun’s Beetle could talk, it would tell a very unusual story for a young woman of that time, when it was uncommon to see female entrepreneurs, least of all engaging in a new and virtually unknown business in the domestic market.
But the Beetle would only hear the beginning of it all because the first thing Lisabeth did was sell her car to invest in the country’s first compounding pharmacy in Rio de Janeiro. The Beetle was then forced to find new stories to tell while Lisabeth embarked on what would turn out to be an extremely successful journey: building and scaling a business.
From Pharmacist to Entrepreneur
Lisabeth worked in a public hospital in Rio de Janeiro. It seemed like she had the dream job, with reduced hours in a cutting-edge environment. However, she began to feel a great deal of discouragement upon realizing that there was little opportunity to grow in her career.
That’s when she traveled to Buenos Aires and learned about compounding pharmacies — something unheard of in Brazil at the time — and her family’s entrepreneurial vision kicked in. Lisabeth and her husband Walter are themselves descendants of entrepreneurs — immigrants who arrived in Brazil without any resources when they fled from World War II, and started their own businesses.
Excited by the prospect, and with her husband’s full support, biochemical pharmacist Lisabeth quit her job and rented a small commercial office where, with a partner, she took her first steps as an entrepreneur. At first, she did a little bit of everything, ranging from crafting business plans to delivering customer service; from liaising with doctors to compounding formulas.
From the small room where she saw customers coming in, she couldn’t believe how many orders were being placed. The business began to grow and soon the pharmacy had to move to a larger site. Afterward, three other stores were in operation. At the same time, Lisabeth was busy with her personal life. “I was at the age where I wanted to have children, build a family,” she said. “Everything was happening simultaneously and I had to split my time in order for everything to work out.”
And it did, so much so that she started to dream bigger and bigger. After a few years, Lisabeth and her business partner decided to go their separate ways to pursue new plans.
Two-Time Entrepreneur
“You need to have a lot of emotional padding to make it, you always have to be on your game because your motivation and your work is an example to others around you.”
Lisabeth then embarked on a new entrepreneurial journey. It was 1990 and the business world was becoming more familiar and less inhospitable for women. Her next challenge was to explain her unique idea to the market. The plan was to start everything from scratch, with a new name, Dermage, and logo — in short, a new company. She made a point out of innovating and doing things differently, but always in line with the values that guided her work, such as dedication, honesty and credibility among doctors. “It ended up being easier than I thought,” she said.
That’s when she had her great ah-ha moment: Why not industrialize her successful formulas and turn the company into a dermocosmetics brand? That was what truly set Dermage apart, leading to recognition by doctors nationwide.
She made another wise choice: to surround herself with people who had complementary skills, and highly qualified professionals from administrative and financial areas, who devoted themselves to managing a business that was prepared to make its creator’s big dreams come true.
Even so, there were — and still are — many stumbling blocks in a country that has undergone several economic crises and plans. During this journey, Lisabeth had many sleepless nights, thinking about what the next day would be like, as well as a great deal of resilience to overcome so many obstacles. But Lisabeth always maintained the same enthusiasm and optimism from the get-go: “You need to have a lot of emotional padding to make it, you always have to be on your game because your motivation and your work is an example to others around you.”
Despite difficulties along the way, Lisabeth remained invested in Dermage. The business grew, her husband Walter —an engineer — became director of production and, together, they created an innovative company in the dermocosmetics market.
Family Succession
After spending the holidays working in the family business, Ilana Braun, Lisabeth’s daughter, became excited by the prospect of doing something much bigger. She resigned from the financial market and began to work with her parents at Dermage. Shortly thereafter, she became Dermage’s CEO. Ilana approached Endeavor Brazil with the aim of finding the business mentors, who could help Dermage grow.
“It was very important because it opened access to a wide range of people that could support us and show us the way,” Lisabeth reflected. “Entrepreneurs often feel very lonely. They have to make decisions, but they’re very alone and don’t know what to do.”
As a result of this crucial support in company management, Lisabeth could focus on product innovation and development, a strategic area for future plans.
Together, the family expanded the brand’s portfolio (which today features over 300 hair, face, body, make-up, spa and nutricosmetics products); increased its distribution channels (among their own stores, franchises and drugstores, spread out across Brazil); earned credibility with doctors; won awards in international congresses; and became respected by consumers.
A Woman’s World
Women are Dermage’s target audience — and they also make up 90% of the company’s staff. Lisabeth claims that she enjoys working with women because they know, as users, what other women want. She also values women’s skills across all fields: “There’s a lot of prejudice against women, but we are just as capable as anyone else — so much so that we can lead a double life and look after a family, a home and a job and still be efficient in all those spheres.”
