Rachel Brown
From C-Suite To VC: Can Beauty’s Star Executives Succeed As Investors?
The beauty executive-to-investor pipeline is bursting. A week ago, Jane Lauder, the former president of Clinique who spent three decades at Estée Lauder, the company founded by her grandmother, announced she’s starting
The Funding Conundrum: Can You Build A $100M Beauty Brand With Less Than $15M?
In a recent report on how to build a $100 million brand, the venture capital firm XRC Ventures estimates it takes $15 million to $25 million in funding for a brand to reach the sales threshold where large...
BAM Ventures’ Shamin Walsh On The Financial Discipline Of Early-Stage Consumer Investing
For early-stage consumer brands in BAM Ventures’ portfolio, the firm often represents a pivotal milestone: their first institutional investor. It takes that position seriously, acting as a bridge between scrappy beginnings, when product-market fit is still...
Pacha Soap Co. Pursues Growth With Rebrand And New Gen Z Line Foxly
When the idea for Pacha Soap Co. took shape in Andrew Vrbas’s dorm room at Hastings College in Nebraska, his mission was clear: foster local economies by ethically sourcing ingredients from some of the world’s most impoverished...
Ex-Cosmetic Solutions CEO Launches Manufacturer Next Beauty Labs For Fast-Growing Emerging Brands
Beauty contract manufacturing is Warren Becker’s legacy—and he’s continuing to build that legacy. The former CEO of Cosmetic Solutions, the copacker his father Mervyn started in 1991 after his uncle Hilton began formulating skincare for doctors’...
KKT Labs’ Answer To Beauty’s Innovation Drought
While the beauty industry launches tens of thousands of new products each year, very few are revolutionary, and genuine breakthroughs have become increasingly rare. The problem is exacerbated by large beauty conglomerates’ pressing operational challenges, the small...
Don’t Make These Costly Rebrand Mistakes: Lessons From A Founder Closing Her Brand
When Raeka Morar launched South Asian-inspired skincare brand Raeka Beauty in 2017 with peel-off turmeric masks, Sephora distribution was her goal. She says, “I would always go there and imagine us being there one day.” Morar’s...
