What do you do when you need to come up with an idea?
I really like making brainstormings. I often start with myself, but I especially like to brainstorm with my teams. I find that when we start by doing it each on our own, together, afterwards, it gives incredible ideas, these brainstormings! It really takes us far.
And when you brainstorm, how do you do it?
When it’s serious, I often go to a restaurant.
I meet people at the restaurant and I take placemats. Many restaurant placemats have subsequently given rise to a range of products.
Who do you admire in the business world?
My greatest admiration goes to my grandmother and my mother. I grew up in my mother’s hair salon.
My paternal grandmother—we go back to the 1940s—had a convenience store. It was something back then to be a businesswoman. These are women I admire a lot and I am lucky to have these role models close to me.
Entrepreneurs don’t necessarily have role models in their family. My mother showed me everything when I worked with her.
In my field, I really like the Mary Kay story. I like women who break new ground, who think outside the box and then allow other women to follow that path.
How do you unplug?
Reading. It’s really my way of taking a moment for myself. Although I’m very busy, I read at least one book a week. Often business books, professional growth books, but I also have, sometimes, some lighter books, personal growth books.
What book do you usually recommend?
So many books have inspired me. People who know me know that passion is something really important to me. To each his own missiona book by Jean Monbourquette, really made me think, at the time, about my future as an entrepreneur and take the leap.
What are your best and worst habits?
The habit that has served me the most is making lists. I am a hyper-organized person and it is a satisfaction to see what gets done. My worst habit is that I often skip dinner. The day goes by so quickly.
What advice are you glad you ignored?
The one about not starting a business.
My parents are both entrepreneurs and they thought it was so hard to be an entrepreneur, that there were so many challenges. I was doing very well in school, so my parents told me: find a career!
On the contrary, I was excited by what my parents did.
Where does this passion for beauty come from?
I started doing treatments with my grandmother. […] I was often at my grandmother’s and we made herbal teas, soaps, skin creams, cough syrups with spruce.
Was there a moment when your career took a turn?
It was during a trip to Paris that I discovered cosmetic patches. When I came back, I said to myself: my path is in cosmetics, I want to launch cosmetic treatments, that’s what I want to do.
“Buy, Hold, Sell”: What would you like more of, as much of, and less of in your workplace?
No more time. I’m always running after my time. […]
As much: always creativity and innovation. When you have a business, it must never stop.
Less stress. In the early years, stress gave me energy, but over time I find that stress tires me out more than it energizes me, so it takes stress without distress.
Who is Karine Joncas?
She founded the cosmetics company that bears her name in 2001, after working for ten years in the world of education.
Its products are available in pharmacies: they can be found in nearly 1,000 points of sale.
The company is launching its own dermocosmetic product manufacturing plant this fall, Innovalab.
Karine Joncas Cosmétiques has been on the magazine’s list of women’s businesses for the past five years. Business Firsts – medium-sized business category.