Scenario Planning in a Volatile World: Independent Founders on Building Resilience

At ShopTalk Fall, in a candid conversation, David Gaylord, CEO of Bushbalm, and Kim Roxie, Founder & CEO of LAMIK Beauty, described the hard choices that have defined their growth from reshaping supply chains to betting on old-school community building. Moderated by Harshida Acharya, Chief Strategy Officer at Fulfillment IQ, the session revealed what resilience looks like when resources are thin and the stakes are high.

Calming teams in the face of shocks

Gaylord, who built Bushbalm after seven years at Shopify, recalled the tariff turmoil that rattled his Canadian operations. His first instinct was not just logistical but cultural: steadying his team. “If you don’t calm the room on Monday morning, the whole week is lost,” he explained. By lowering the temperature, leadership bought time to research options and avoid hasty decisions.

For Roxie at LAMIK Beauty, the shift was structural. Moving from third-party logistics to her own in-house distribution in Tulsa, while manufacturing in Houston, cut costs and gave her brand the agility to respond to last-minute requests. “There’s no right or wrong,” she said. “But for us, owning operations meant flexibility - the ability to pivot quickly when retailers ask for changes or big orders.”

Choosing different supply chain bets

The two founders highlighted diverging strategies. Bushbalm relies on third-party logistics across Canada and the US to handle the complexity of supplying Amazon, Ulta, DTC customers and more than 13,000 waxing salons. “Running a 3PL is a different business,” Gaylord said. “We’d rather lean on partners so we can focus on growth.”

Roxie, by contrast, doubled down on control. Building her own facility reduced fees and allowed for closer relationships with employees. It also gave her more freedom to experiment with shipping models that fit her mission of eco-conscious, inclusive beauty.

Following the customer, not the conventional wisdom

Gaylord described one of Bushbalm’s biggest leaps: moving from a pure DTC skincare brand into the professional waxing channel. Investors initially questioned the move, but today the company supplies nearly 15,000 estheticians. “Every single day, 20,000 professionals are talking about Bushbalm in their salons,” he said. “You couldn’t pay Facebook enough to generate that kind of word-of-mouth.”

Roxie pointed to a different kind of community. At a previous ShopTalk, she met the chairman of Midwest retailer Hy-Vee. That single encounter led to a rollout in 37 stores. By personally visiting each location, she turned what could have been a transactional deal into a relationship that elevated the brand in the eyes of shoppers and staff alike.

Betting on human connection

When asked about the next 12–24 months, both leaders highlighted strategies that go against the grain of digital automation. Roxie is “going old school”: deeper touchpoints with every customer, from phone calls to physical catalogues, all rooted in women’s empowerment. “Grandmothers were loyal to the brands they knew,” she said. “We’re taking that idea and modernising it.”

Gaylord is investing in physical presence too, from in-person esthetician events to salon signage designed to spark millions of conversations a year. On the technology side, his bet is on building a customised B2B portal that feels more like onboarding a SaaS platform than ordering wholesale. “That’s where we’ll use data and AI,” he noted, “to make buying from us seamless.”

Advice for founders navigating uncertainty

Both speakers closed with lessons forged in turbulence. For Gaylord, systems matter more than improvisation: even when Bushbalm was a three-person team, they ran quarterly reviews and structured decision frameworks like a public company. “Good processes lead to good decisions, especially when shocks hit,” he said.

Roxie’s counsel was more disruptive: “Do the hard things now. Tear it up if you have to. People are more patient in volatile times - your team, your partners, even your customers. Use that window to make the big changes that set you up for sustainable growth.”

The takeaway

If the first keynote of the day framed scenario planning as an enterprise discipline, this session showed its independent equivalent: calm the team, pick the right operational model for your stage, and double down on authentic relationships. In a volatile world, agility comes not from predicting the next shock but from structuring your business so it can bend without breaking.

Independently Created. Not affiliated with Shoptalk.

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