This is an episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, which features candid conversations about how today’s trends are shaping the future of the beauty and wellness industries. More from the series →
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Sloane Stephens started playing tennis at 9 years old and quickly climbed the ranks, beating Serena Williams in the 2013 Australian Open at age 19. She is the founder of The Sloane Stephens Foundation, which works to introduce tennis to underserved students — and, as of August 21, she is the founder of Doc & Glo, a body-care line that debuted with two products: the $18 Game-Changing Deodorant and the $22 24/7 Hustle Deodorizing Body Mist. The brand is named after Stephens’ grandparents. Her grandfather was an OB/GYN, while her grandmother “had all these girls’ groups and always gave back,” Stephens said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast.
The brand will retail on its own DTC site, on Amazon and on the Free People Movement website — Free People Movement has sponsored Stephens since the start of 2023.
On this week’s episode, Stephens discusses her venture into entrepreneurship, the target audience for her brand’s first two products and tennis’s current moment in the cultural spotlight. Below are highlights from the episode, which have been lightly edited for clarity.
Formulating during Covid
“I custom-formulated every single product. … It was at the time of not being able to shower in the locker rooms [after] practicing and having to go straight from the site back to the hotels, and not having the normal hygiene — things that we normally do on tour. … Normally, you shower right away [and wash off all the sunscreen]. You shower in the locker rooms. … It was definitely something that I worked on during Covid, because I felt like no one should be stinky in Covid – we were already going through enough. I was like, ‘This is something that I definitely am super passionate about.’ Self-care, body care — I’ve always been very passionate about [these things]. It’s always something that has been on my mind. I always knew I wanted to do something in this space, I just didn’t know what exactly. … I wanted to create a product that was for everyone — not only a professional athlete, but also for the mom taking her kids to school. It’s for people who do Orange Theory, or whatever it is, and people who just have on-the-go lifestyles. … I made every single product with that in mind, and with a tad bit of luxury. I wanted the experience to feel rich, but also to be very affordable.”
The trials and tribulations of entrepreneurship
“I’ve said this many times throughout this journey. … If I wasn’t me [behind the brand], I couldn’t afford to fix some of the mistakes [of] people we’ve hired to create for us, I truly don’t understand how people can have a startup or start a passion project or start something they want to start, when they get screwed out of their creative or they get screwed out of their packaging, or whatever it is. This literally kills companies before they even start. It’s so heartbreaking to see. I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to manage it all and do everything in a way that I had plenty of time — I wasn’t rushed. And I had the funds to fix mistakes and things like that. Mind you, all of this is self-funded. I paid for everything with my own money, I didn’t have any investors, I did everything myself. I can only imagine people who start companies the same way or start brands the same way and don’t even make it to the formulation process or don’t even make it to retailers or don’t even make it to DTC, because they had a colossal mess-up before they even got started. Entrepreneurship is not for the weak.”
Tennis’s big moment
“I feel like tennis has its waves, right? There will be moments where it’s very popular, very cool. Obviously, this year has been one of those moments. Everything kind of came together nicely, in terms of “Challengers” and The Olympics and other brands doing very cool collabs. Zendaya and Roger Federer — that was a very cool collab. So it’s bringing tennis back to the forefront. This year, and just in general, the marketing for tennis and the marketing for a bunch of different brands has been very cool — just making tennis cool again for people who normally wouldn’t watch tennis or be interested in tennis. … Being able to launch a brand in that sphere, when things are very exciting around the sport, in general, has been cool. Obviously, I play tennis. I’m living it every day, I get to see it every day. But, for the general tennis fan, or someone who’s new to watching tennis, it’s a very exciting time. There’s way cooler stuff happening now than there was three years ago.”
