Applications are open for Bridge Mentorship, the professional development program from True Beauty Ventures and Beauty Independent.
The mentorship program is designed to support entrepreneurs behind emerging beauty and wellness brands by leveraging the knowledge of the venture capital firm and the indie beauty business publication. To be eligible, applicants must have brands based in the United States, on the market for at least six months, and generating annual sales of $250,000 or above.
Three brands will be chosen for each cohort of the mentorship program, and there will be two cohorts per year lasting six months each. Decisions on the three brands in the first cohort will be made in late December and revealed publicly in January. For Bridge Mentorship, True Beauty co-founders Rich Gersten and Cristina Nuñez will be identifying early-stage brands that show signs of staying power.
“We don’t want to launch just another mentorship or accelerator program, there are a ton out there,” says Nuñez. “It’s about, how do we take our depth and expertise in beauty coupled with Beauty Independent’s platform and cultivation of all things indie beauty and make something really special, an experience that touches multiple areas within a business’s life cycle and challenges they’re going to face along the way, one of which is ultimately funding?”
“Becoming ‘funding-ready’ is a critical step in a brand’s growth path,” says Nader Naeymi-Rad, co-founder of Indie Beauty Media Group, parent company of Beauty Independent. “We know from so many entrepreneurs in the industry that getting that first dollar of funding is often the most challenging. Together with the team at True Beauty Ventures, we will provide beauty entrepreneurs with a path forward through this program.”
The program will deliver a structured curriculum centered on strategic analysis, goal setting and action planning, and will include regular monitoring by the program mentors. At the completion of the program, members of the cohorts will participate in a group webinar with True Beauty to be hosted and moderated by Beauty Independent. They will share their experiences and key learnings with the broader community.
The Bridge Mentorship program is intentional about considering both beauty and wellness brands, the lines between which are more blurred than ever. “The continuous convergence of beauty and wellness together and where those intersecting points are is interesting to us,” says Nuñez.
The entrepreneurs leading the applying brands will also be a key factor in Nuñez and Gersten determining whether they are fits for the program. In general, Gersten notes True Beauty gravitates to strong founders that find ways to win in an increasingly competitive market. “There are always going to be pockets of growth within down segments or share shifts that happen,” he says. “We’re going to be able to adjust and ebb and flow with cycles that happen naturally in categories, but we’re very people-focused and that’s what we’re going to focus this mentorship program on.”
Nuñez and Gersten will rely on the instincts they’ve cultivated over the years to pick brands that they can push to the next level. Prior to True Beauty, Nuñez was GM and COO of Clark’s Botanicals, chief of staff at Laura Geller, and senior associate at Tengram Capital Partners, among various positions. Gersten has spent over 21 years as a partner in various consumer-focused private equity funds, including nine years at North Castle Partners, where he remains an advisor. True Beauty makes $1 million to $5 million investments in brands largely producing $2 million or more in annual revenues. Its portfolio includes Maude, Aquis, Crown Affair, Feals, K18 and Kinship.
“When you look at a hundred brands, two or three just pop or rise to the surface, and it could be a number of different reasons why that happens,” says Gersten. “Someone’s going to submit an application in this process and we’re going to be like, ‘Yep, that’s the one we like,’ and it might be for a reason I don’t even know right now.”
Interested brands can apply to the Bridge Mentorship program here until Dec. 1.
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