Rebecca Rittenhouse (Privet Beauty) on Hero Products, Hollywood and Identity Shifts

Building a business in public is hard. Building one when people already think they know you? Even harder.

Today, Sammi sits down with actor and founder Rebecca Rittenhouse to talk about reinvention—on her own terms. Rebecca shares how she went from studying business at UPenn to taking a sharp left turn into acting, landing her breakout role on The Mindy Project, and ultimately channeling those skills into launching her clean, brow-focused beauty brand, Privet Beauty.

Instead of launching with a sprawling product line or celebrity hype, she built Privet around a single hero product—bootstrapped, independently owned, and deeply hands-on at every step, from formulation with Korean chemists to brand storytelling. Rebecca opens up about the identity shift from actor to founder, how skills from acting translated into entrepreneurship, and why she chose independence over outside funding. 

Sammi and Rebecca also get into launching a brand with focus instead of scale, balancing two demanding careers at once, building a personal brand without losing yourself in it, and the scrappy, low-cost marketing moves that actually move the needle. 

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Check out Privet Beauty online and on Shopbop

Here’s what Sammi covers with Rebecca:

00:00 Rebecca Rittenhouse’s Social Currency

03:25 Business at UPenn 

05:51Choosing Acting Over Business 

09:32 Early Acting Experiences and Challenges 

11:54 Breakthrough Role on The Mindy Project 

14:43 Launching Privet Beauty

16:59 The Importance of Eyebrows in Beauty 

24:29 Marketing and Personal Branding 

29:31 Substack and Personal Branding 

30:49 Dealing with Self-Doubt and Inner Criticism 

32:51 Building a Team  

35:58 The Challenges of Bootstrapping a Business 

43:15 Managing Time and Staying Organized 

46:35 Making Decisions and Handling Emotions 

52:32 Marketing Strategies for a New Business 

55:45 How to Show Social Currency Some Love 

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