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“I think one of the parts that is very exciting is that by sharing your knowledge, you empower other people to follow their dreams. Being an entrepreneur is not only following your journey, but also giving back.”
Some businesses start with a trend. Others start by questioning why something hasn’t changed.
Andrea Lisbona built Touchland by rethinking a product most people had accepted as it was. Early on, she saw an everyday essential that lacked both experience and design, and decided to approach it differently. That decision led to years of learning the category from the inside before bringing her own product to market.
What followed wasn’t immediate success. It was a long build: understanding distribution, refining the product, making deliberate decisions about investors, and eventually repositioning the brand in a new market. By the time demand surged, the foundation had already been laid.
In this episode of the Entreprenista Podcast, Andrea shares what it actually took to get there. From spending five years learning before launching, to navigating a 2000% overnight growth surge, to making high-stakes decisions around partnerships and scaling, she offers a clear look at the realities behind building a category-defining brand.
You can listen to the podcast here on Spotify and Apple Podcast.
Here are a few moments from the podcast:
The idea started by questioning why an everyday essential felt so broken:
“I remember this product… hand sanitizer… and what everyone said about the product is like, it smells like cheap vodka. It's so sticky.
And when I was starting to understand this category, I was like, this is gonna be like brushing your teeth… hand hygiene plays a key role to stay healthy. 80% of infectious diseases spread through hands.
So I was challenged to believe why a key product that keeps you healthy has to be so unpleasing.”
Instead of rushing to launch, she committed years to understanding the industry from the inside:
“I think one of the lessons I learned is like, build what you can sell, not sell what you can build.
So I did five years to really understand the industry from inside… instead of like, okay, my thoughts, this is what people need…
We got to see both from commercial point of view, but also personal point of view, what were the pains in this industry? Was it the formula? Was it the experience? Was it the application, the technology?
And after five years, we decided… we've learned enough. We're ready to go.”
Growth required recognizing when the original path wasn’t the right one:
“One of the things that I've learned as an entrepreneur is that when you want to get somewhere, sometimes you just have to change your path.
We had this great idea, this great concept, but we were in the wrong market…
So we said, look, 30% of the global demand of hand sanitizers is in US… we're gonna dream big… pack our things and just start our American dream… and we moved here in 2018.”
Raising capital tested both her patience and her conviction:
“It took one year and a half… and you see the bank account that goes like this…
We had offers that just were like, okay, I'm gonna regret it in a year from now, rather don't get married…
So we keep going and going and meeting with people… and then you end up… meeting with the right investor.
It took us one year and a half to raise funds and then we pitched and we raised in 24 hours.
As an entrepreneur, it's such a roller coaster… the desperation that you face for one year and a half and then in 24 hours you close the round.”
When demand exploded, the challenge shifted entirely to operations and execution:
“We were growing over 2000% overnight…
So obviously we had to readjust everything… make sure that we could take all the pre-orders that we were receiving and making sure that we could maximize product availability for as many people as possible.
My last four months I've been 90% of my time dedicated to supply chain… because we needed to maximize product availability for everyone.”
Even at peak demand, she made decisions based on long-term brand integrity:
“We decided that we didn't want to touch the prices… although the alcohol price triples…
I think in this case, we focus more on what's going to be tested in one year, two years, three years from now… than what can we make best out of this moment.”
Her perspective on entrepreneurship is grounded in impact beyond the business itself:
“I think one of the parts that is very exciting is that by sharing your knowledge, you empower other people to follow their dreams.
Being an entrepreneur is not only following your journey, but also giving back…
I think by sharing my story, my worst days, my obstacles, I also motivate people to say like, okay, she went through hell, but there she is… then maybe I could do the same.”
You may also like:
- How to Build a Personal Brand That Drives Revenue (Without Burning Out)
- Scaling Strategies to Elevate Your Business with Carlyn Bushman
- Nomiki Petrolla’s Strategies for Scaling Startups and Empowering Women in Tech
Connect with Andrea:
- Touchland’s Website
- LinkedIn
- @andrealisbona on Instagram
- @andrealisbona on X/Twitter
Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of The Entreprenista Podcast - the most fun business meeting for women founders and leaders. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.
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Updated on: May 1, 2026
Guests
Andrea Lisbona
CEO of Touchland
Hosts
Courtney Spritzer
Co-founder of Entreprenista.
Courtney Spritzer is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, author, and community builder with a passion for creating brands and platforms that empower women to lead, grow, and thrive.
In 2012, she co-founded Socialfly, a leading social-first digital and influencer marketing agency. Over the course of a decade, she helped scale the business into an award-winning agency working with Fortune 500 brands and emerging startups, building a powerhouse team and culture along the way. In 2024, Socialfly was acquired.
In 2018, Courtney launched the Entreprenista Podcast to spotlight the stories of inspiring women founders. That passion evolved into Entreprenista Media in 2021, a media platform and community supporting women entrepreneurs at every stage of growth. She now co-leads the continued expansion of The Entreprenista League, a membership-driven community and ecosystem for founders.
As an angel investor, Courtney supports female-led and mission-driven startups aligned with her vision for a more inclusive and equitable business landscape.
She is the co-author of Like, Love, Follow: The Entreprenista’s Guide to Using Social Media to Grow Your Business (2015), a strategic guide for leveraging social platforms to drive business success.
Her work and ventures have been featured in Bloomberg, Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, and The New York Times. She is committed to championing visionary founders and helping build the next generation of impactful, community-driven businesses.
Stephanie Cartin
Co-founder of Socialfly and Entreprenista.
Stephanie Cartin is the co-founder and CEO of Entreprenista, an all-in-one platform – which includes a private community & business membership called The Entreprenista League that's made up of over 2,000 women founders at all stages of business, a weekly newsletter received by 60,000 readers, two podcasts, in-person educational & networking events, and an award program – that women founders at all stages can turn to for everything they need to grow.
Stephanie is also the co-founder of Socialfly (acquired by Truform Media Group in 2024), Markid, and Pearl Influential Capital. She has won countless awards, including the SmartCEO Brava award, which recognizes the top women CEOs in New York, and a Stevie Award for Women-Run Workplace of the Year. She has also appeared in Bloomberg, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Refinery29, and more.
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