“Get The Discipline In Early”: Bridge Mentorship Cohort Brands On Professionalizing For Scale
For beauty brand founders scaling their businesses in a multipolar beauty industry, Cristina Nuñez, co-founder and general partner at beauty and wellness investment firm True Beauty Ventures, has some straightforward advice that can be difficult in practice: Don’t get distracted.
“You’re dealing with fires that you’re putting out every day,” she said during a Beauty Independent In Conversation webinar last Wednesday. “It’s really hard to create the time to be strategic, so focus on the things that matter. There’s no overnight success. Keep at it.”
Nuñez zeroed in on managing cost of goods and gross margins, which have become challenging of late as global tariffs shake up the consumer goods industry. TBV considers brands that have at least 70% gross margins for investment.
“The brands that were already set up for success because they had a stronger gross margin…are the ones that are less stressed and worried right now,” said Nuñez. “It’s still challenging, but you’re in a different position than if you’re starting off with an already unfavorable gross margin profile.”
The webinar recapped lessons from the first 2025 cohort and seventh cohort overall of Bridge Mentorship, a six-month program established by TBV, a beauty and wellness investment firm with Crown Affair, Caliray, BeautyStat, Vacation, Dieux, The Maker and Maude in its portfolio, and Beauty Independent to ready brands for fundraising. To be eligible for the program, applicants must lead brands based in North America that are at least six months old and generating annual sales of $250,000 or above. Applications for the program’s second cohort of 2025 opened May 14 and will close May 30. The three brands selected for the cohort will be revealed in July.
For the webinar, Nuñez was joined by Rich Gersten, co-founder and managing partner of TBV, and founders who participated in Bridge Mentorship this year: Educated Mess co-founders Catherine Chick and Alex Padgett, KJH Brand founder Katie Jane Hughes and Sahajan founder Lisa Mattam. The founders’ brands underwent the diagnostic process at the heart of Bridge Mentorship similar to the due diligence process brands typically go through when fundraising. It examines key aspects of business like brand positioning, finances and distribution. Once the process is complete, TBV develops action plans to set brands’ goals and measure progress.
Bridge Mentorship alumni have achieved significant milestones. Sofie Pavitt Face secured seed funding from TBV before launching at Sephora earlier this year. In January, Damdam Toyko nabbed $3 million seed funding in a round led by venture capital firm Silas Capital. Prakti launched at Credo last year. Nopalera and Youthforia have secured capital, too.
Below, we highlight top takeaways from Educated Mess, KJH Brand and Sahajan’s Bridge Mentorship experience.
Educated Mess
Year Launched: 2021
Category: Skincare
Positioning: Effective skincare backed by innovative science.
Price Range: $69 to $95
Hero Product: Freeze Frame Peptide Serum Concentrate
Distribution: DTC, TikTok Shop
Co-founded by cosmetic chemist Padgett, who was previously director of research development at contract manufacturer Botanical Science, Educated Mess seeks to modernize everyday skincare essentials like vitamin C and peptide serums. As the 4-year-old brand gears up to launch on Amazon in the next few months, it’s working to refine its story to appeal to a broader swath of customers. It’s tapping View from 32, a beauty brand advisory firm it connected with during the Bridge Mentorship program, to hone its positioning.
The program also helped Educated Mess to identify critical financial metrics to track to run a successful beauty business. The brand has hired fractional finance firm Crew Finance to assist with forecast modeling.
“We were not tracking anything. We were just throwing spaghetti at the wall, seeing what sticks,” said Chick. “Now we have a better idea of how to really narrow down our focus on things that are going to push our brand forward, how to monetize it and track that monetization.”
KJH Brand
Year Launched: 2023
Category: Makeup
Positioning: Founded by a makeup artist and social media educator, the brand bridges the gap between professional artistry and everyday accessibility.
Price Range: $24 to $26
Hero Product: Soft Smudge Lip & Cheek
Distribution: DTC
Makeup brand KJH Brand entered the Bridge Mentorship program to start professionalizing its business as it prepares for its next phase of growth. Its lineup features multi-use color cosmetics and tools, and it’s known for educating consumers on makeup application.
Since its launch in the fall of 2023, KJH Brand has released two products: Hyper Shine Kit, featuring a brush, cream highlighter and shine serum, and Smudge Stick Lip & Cheek. Informed by recommendations given to it during the Bridge Mentorship program, it’s accelerating its product pipeline moving forward. Two additional products will make their debuts later this year, and eight product launches are scheduled through 2027.
Similar to Chick, Tarek Gamal Eldin, who runs operations, logistics and finance for KJH Brand and is married to Hughes, stressed the importance of understanding the performance metrics to track and optimizing operations by analyzing both internal and external spending efficiently. Eldin said, “The expression that goes, ‘If you’re not tracking it, then you can’t manage it,’ it was 100% accurate with us.”
Discussing business practices, Gersten counseled, “Get the discipline in early and then scale the discipline as your business scales as opposed to starting too late and having it be more difficult.”
Sahajan
Year Launched: 2015
Category: Skincare
Positioning: Sahajan is a clean, clinically proven Ayurvedic beauty brand.
Price Range: $34 to $64
Hero product: Radiance Face Serum
Distribution: DTC, Sephora Canada, Amazon, Well.ca, Credo, The Detox Market
Gearing up to unveil a rebrand in June, Ayurvedic skincare brand Sahajan leveraged the Bridge Mentorship program to get a clearer picture of balancing brand marketing with performance marketing to reintroduce itself to customers. A 10-year-old brand, Sahajan has raised funding in the past through angel investors, friends and family.
Launched at Sephora Canada last year, Sahajan hopes to expand to Sephora in the United States in the future. Mattam underscored that Bridge Mentorship highlighted the integral role Amazon can play in a prestige skincare brand’s distribution. She said, “Acknowledging that it’s the biggest beauty retailer now in the U.S. and also acknowledging that you can strategically work to grow your portfolio, without restricting potentially your capability at retail, was a really, really helpful conversation.”
Applications are now open for the Second Cohort of 2025. Submit your brand for consideration today! [Deadline: May 30]
