Babba Rivera (Ceremonia) on Making Business Personal, Winning Retail, and Convincing Investors to Bet on Latinx Communities

Building a beauty brand that celebrates Latin culture while
competing on a global stage is no small feat—but for Babba Rivera,
it’s not just business— it’s personal.  Babba founded
Ceremonia to create a haircare brand rooted in Latin heritage,
ritual, and community. Today, Ceremonia is one of the
fastest-growing brands at Sephora, has raised over $11 million, and
just took home an Allure Beauty Award. In this conversation, Babba
shares how she built a company that’s as mission-driven as it is
profitable—cutting marketing costs by half while still growing
revenue—and what it really takes to lead a fast-scaling startup as
a founder and mom of four. Babba also shares about her early days
leading teams at Uber and Away, the power of saying no to investors
who don’t get your vision, and why she believes the future of
beauty is community-first, not celebrity-led.  Follow Sammi on
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Follow Ceremonia on Instagram Follow Babba on Instagram Here’s what
Sammi covers with Babba: 00:00 Babba Rivera’s Social Currency 02:27
Growing Up Between Cultures 05:07 Early Beauty Rituals and Haircare
Influences 07:00 Lessons from Uber 10:48 The Wild World of Away
13:11 From Marketing Agency to Beauty Brand 15:53 The Birth of
Ceremonia 19:44 Navigating Funding During COVID-19 22:36 Direct to
Consumer and Learning from Customers 27:00 Strategic Move to Credo
27:16 Scaling with Sephora 28:04 Challenges of Big Retailers 30:27
Allure Best of Beauty Award 33:46 Focus on Profitability 38:01
Representation in Beauty 45:11 Balancing Motherhood and Business
50:05 Daily Routines and Systems 53:31 How to Show Social Currency
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