When Sonya Dakar started whipping up skin care products in her kitchen three decades ago, her children and husband, Israel, never imagined that one day the product line would attract a celebrity clientele, be featured in the swankiest of spas and in the pages of People magazine. But, today, that’s just how esteemed the Dakar brand of skin care is. Long gone are the days when the Dakars used a blender to mix the content of products, sorted items on the dining room table and made daily deliveries to the post office because the company was too small to warrant a UPS pickup. Now, the company employs 40 staffers, grosses more than $10 million in revenues yearly and sits in a 64,000-square-foot facility in an industrial complex in San Fernando. That’s quite a jump up from the 3,500-square-feet garage in which the company was originally housed. “It’s a little bit bigger, but we’ll grow into it,” said Nate Dakar, president of MINDYS Cosmetics, the maker of Sonya Dakar Skin Care. MINDYS is an acronym that stands for the initials of the first names of the company’s principals. Mimi Dakar, daughter of Sonya and Israel, serves as vice president of Marketing and Public Relations. Israel oversees Research and Development, while, as mentioned, his son, Nate, oversees the entire company. Remaining children Donna and Yigal Dakar serve as vice president of Education and Spa Sales and vice president of Sales and Marketing, respectively. Founder Sonya Dakar is the face of the product line. Israel and Sonya Dakar’s decision to allow their children to take a central role in company operations, while they take a backseat, has proven beneficial to the company and family, alike, according to Nate Dakar. “It is an extremely unique situation to have a company like ours completely operated by a close-knit family,” he stated. “I think our success is deeply rooted in our ability to work together on the business end and be just a regular close, loving family at the same time.” And typical of a close-knit family, the Dakars are protective of their recipes, and how the contents of their products are prepared. While they experimented with outsourcing three years ago, the Dakars ultimately decided to develop, produce, fill and batch all goods from the corporate offices in San Fernando. Nate Dakar likened MINDYS’ experience with outsourcing to giving someone a recipe only to have a meal prepared that just doesn’t taste right. “The products came back, and they were inferior,” Mimi Dakar said. “We’re the best cooks.” Thus, the Dakars continue to manufacture the Sonya Dakar line. Doing so has paid off, for the company has even garnered a few big name imitators, according to Israel Dakar. Mimi Dakar takes it all in stride. “It’s flattering we’re on their radar,” she said of imitators. But just what steps did the company take to become so successful that it now has copycats? The Business Journal spoke with Nate, Mimi and Israel Dakar about the company’s strategic plan and more. Question: Why did you decide to base the company in San Fernando? And, before that, you had a smaller office in North Hollywood. Is the family from the Valley? ND: No, we’re from the city. We ended up here because the Valley was less expensive. In the Valley, we’re going against the flow of traffic. We also thought about safety if we had to stay late, and the Valley was good a fit. Also, labor is less expensive here. Q: The company’s origins date back decades, but when did things really begin to take off? ND: In 1999, we began to take the products more seriously. I built our Web site. Mimi was doing publicity. Two products came on line. Q: What were things like before? ND: We started out in a garage in Beverly Hills, which is kind of an oxymoron. It was a very exciting time. After a year, we looked for a facility to put the business in and moved to North Hollywood. Q: Discuss the roles family members played in the company’s launch. MD: Everyone had their own piece. Nate was running the operations side. My father was coming out with great products. Donna was pounding the pavement in New York. Yigal, too. We’re a family. We work well together. ND: I totally agree. All of us were pieces to the puzzle. It helped us to develop the brand further. Q: Is it ever difficult to work with family members? MD: No, because we’re spread out. We have a brother in Manhattan, a sister in Long Island. Our mother is in Beverly Hills. ND: In any family business, it’s important to separate family from business. It’s not always easy. It’s challenging, but each of us does what we do best. Q: What did it take to get the company off the ground? ND: We asked ourselves, “What are we going to specialize in?” We focused on acne treatment and discoloration. We called ourselves the ‘problem skin specialists.’ That’s what set us apart from all the rest of them. We got people to become results-oriented. Then, we morphed into total-body specialists, so the whole body is in shape. MD: Corrective skin products used to be something you went to a dermatologist for or called an infomercial hotline for at 2 a.m. ID: I developed the products for my daughter. She would say, ‘Do something about my skin.’ It was for her benefit. We got very expensive raw materials. We wanted to be the best. Q: To what in particular do you attribute your success? ND: A large part of our success comes from my parents. They’ll say, ‘Let’s develop new products.’ My parents are big innovators. A lot of children (in family businesses) say their parents are old school, but not in our case. They’re pushing us. We give credit to God for really blessing us. We’re really helping people get rid of acne, making people feel good about themselves. People need to feel good about themselves, even in an economy that’s a little bit stuck. Q: What are some of your new products? MD: We launched a line of post-laser recovery products. We hear about the need for this from consumers. We test everything. It takes us about 18 to 24 months to launch a product. ND: We’re always developing new products that address clients’ needs. We have acne products, products for discoloration. ID: We read scientific journals to help us come up with ideas for products. We rely on that research. MD: We have new body care products and skin care products in FAA-approved sizes, so our clients can travel easily. Q: What’s in the works for the future? ND: Expanding to different spas and hotels, possibly expanding internationally to Asia and Europe. We see a lot of growth on a broader scale. It’s very exciting. MD: We grow on a monthly basis, so we’ve been in growth mode for quite some time.
