WE'RE THE #78 FASTEST GROWING COMPANY IN AMERICA

What do you get when you cross a Broadway performer and director with a Marketing pro? An Inc 5000 Fastest Growing Private Company in America! 🚀

We’re so proud and honored to be named the #78 Fastest Growing Company in America (we’re in the top 100 🤯) and the #4 Marketing Agency! 

But it wasn’t always easy. Here’s a peek into the early days at Movers+Shakers.

Goldberg: Work was sporadic. Our storytelling style was pretty niche. For the first few years, it was very hand-to-mouth--there were good periods, but there were also dry periods.

Horowitz: By the time we were going to adopt our daughter, it wasn't clear we could keep going. To network, we flew to Los Angeles for my 20-year high school reunion. A friend I hadn't spoken to in years was the VP of brand marketing at e.l.f. Cosmetics. The idea of collaborating on something businesswise was really exciting for two old high school friends. e.l.f. asked us whether we'd heard of this app called TikTok. We hadn't.

Goldberg: We downloaded the app, dove in, and studied it.

Horowitz: This was 2019, and there were maybe five brands that had even done anything on it. It was pretty fringe.

Goldberg: At that point, we looked at each other and realized: Wait, this is exactly what we do! We work with brands to use music to bring their story to life in a culturally relevant way.

Horowitz: TikTok itself advised against writing original songs for people to use in their videos. Everyone else licensed existing music clips. But we thought, if we're going to get thousands of people to make a video and they're all going to use the same song--duh--that song should be about this brand. e.l.f. was hesitant; there was no playbook for what its brand sounded like. It's a lot of pressure to define a brand with just a few seconds of play. There was concern it would sound cheesy or be a jingle.

Goldberg: We said no, no, no, no! Let's create a hip-hop-inspired brand anthem that would naturally be in the playlist of the people who were using TikTok. We knew we could make it sound cool. We contracted producers and artists and demoed about a dozen versions of the song, which sets what e.l.f. stands for--eyes, lips, face--to music. It was the brand's goal to introduce Gen-Z to what e.l.f. actually stands for. In October of 2019, we launched e.l.f.'s #eyeslipsface campaign.

Read the full interview on Inc.com, or listen to Inc.’s podcast interview with Geoffrey & Evan.