Aspire with Emma Grede

Durana Elmi knows how to build a business. Before Cymbiotika, she built and exited four companies. She then took a wellness brand with one employee, one product, and almost no infrastructure and helped scale it into a $150 million business alongside her husband Shahab.
In this episode of Aspire, Emma sits down with Durana to unpack the decisions behind that growth. They also get candid about money, marriage, and leadership. Durana shares why financial independence matters deeply to her, what 27 years of building alongside her husband has taught her about disagreement, and how her definition of success has changed from making money to owning her time.
You’ll learn:
Why Cymbiotika bootstrapped for five years before taking outside capital
What infrastructure needs to be in place when a business starts growing faster than you can keep up with
The expensive lessons founders can learn from going into retail too quickly
What a $25 million strategic raise brought beyond capital
Why celebrity investors became a part of Cymbiotika’s growth strategy
How to make decisions when data challenges your instincts

It's easier than ever to launch a beauty brand—and harder than ever to make it last. In this first-ever Aspire founders roundtable, Danessa Myricks (Danessa Myricks Beauty), Dianna Cohen (Crown Affair), and Amy Liu (Tower 28) get honest about what it actually takes to build and scale a brand people believe in.

These aren’t early ideas—they’re Sephora-scale businesses: Tower 28, launched in 2019, now with a reported $228 million valuation; Crown Affair, launched in 2020 and scaled from roughly 55 to 600 Sephora doors, with a dry shampoo that has ranked #1 in the category; and Danessa Myricks Beauty, a profitable-since-launch business that had already grown to roughly 500 SKUs before entering Sephora.

From getting into Sephora and staying there, to raising capital vs. bootstrapping, to building community you can't reverse-engineer—this is the real playbook for 2026.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
What separates brands that last, and why launching is easy but sustaining is hard
How to build community with soul, purpose, and mission
The truth about retail and the operational and financial discipline it takes to scale in Sephora
How to fund your vision, what outside money is really for, and why finding aligned investors is key
How founders evolve with intention and decide what to control, when to delegate, and different ways to lead a brand through growth

There’s a lot of dopey financial advice out there. Jill Schlesinger is here to call it out, answer your questions, break down the financial news that actually matters, and help you manage your money without losing your mind. No jargon. No judgment. Just clear, actionable financial guidance about saving, investing, buying a home, managing your career, and deciding how to spend your hard-earned dollars. When it’s time to panic, Jill will tell you. When everyone else is panicking and you shouldn’t be, Jill will tell you that too. Your money. Your move. Let’s go.

Arthur C. Brooks believes we are living through an age of emptiness—a time when more people feel distracted, disconnected, and unsure of what will actually make their lives meaningful. In his latest book, The Meaning of Your Life, the Harvard professor and New York Times bestselling author examines why so many of the things we chase in pursuit of happiness can leave us feeling unsatisfied once we get them.

In this episode, Emma Grede sits down with Brooks to unpack what is driving our unhappiness and what science actually says about building a meaningful life. Brooks reveals the two questions he gives his Harvard students to diagnose whether they’re experiencing a meaning crisis, why our brains struggle in a world of constant comfort, and how to use social media without letting it drain you.
You’ll learn:
Why achievement rarely satisfies us for as long as we expect
What money can—and cannot—do for your happiness
The five-year exercise that reveals whether your priorities match how you spend your time
What to do in the first and last hour of the day to protect your attention
The step most people skip that makes new practices stick
How to pursue a big goal without becoming emotionally attached to the outcome
The simple ritual to shift your baseline happiness by 15 percent in 12 weeks

Jennifer Garner is an award-winning actor, producer, longtime Save the Children ambassador, and co-founder of Once Upon a Farm, an organic children’s food brand. After rising to fame on Alias, she built a career spanning more than three decades before entering entrepreneurship at 45 and helping grow Once Upon a Farm into a $724 million publicly traded company.
Jennifer joins Emma to talk about the side of success people rarely see: losing years of her life when Alias made her famous, disappearing from friendships, and how the constant presence of paparazzi warped her confidence.
Jennifer shares:
What Jennifer is only now realizing about approval and earning her place
How years of rejection and several failed ideas prepared her for entrepreneurship
What she’s learned about holding anger without burying it
How to recognize the value you bring without conventional qualifications
When fame and visibility can help a business, and where they cannot
What it actually looks like to protect a company’s mission
Why your biggest chapter doesn’t come with an age limit