How Brands Are Joining Forces To Lift Each Other’s Businesses Amid Economic Uncertainty

In this edition of Beauty Independent’s ongoing series posing questions relevant to indie beauty, we ask 12 beauty entrepreneurs: How can emerging brands work to support each other during this rocky economic period?

Katini Yamaoka Founder, Katini Skin

I think realizing that community is key in times of hardship. Yes, we are all competing in the same market, but the minute you realize there is enough space on the playing field for all of us to shine, you start to win. Supporting, sharing and learning about other brands only brings about a positive impact on your own.

Katini Skin was invited to an amazing recent event in the Hamptons by Thirteen Lune, and a small group of founders were provided with a platform to share our stories with the industry. The cross-connections, industry awareness and brand gifting we all participated in were so important to build strong allies and honest industry friendships.

Sharing stories and celebrating each other’s wins and hardships only creates positive conversations around the industry we all love, and that naturally brings about wonderful opportunities for each and every one of us.

Dianna Cohen Founder, Crown Affair

One of my favorite things about this specific industry is that a customer can connect with and use so many different beauty brands. It’s not one player takes all. It’s about all boats rising and having an abundance mindset, especially when it comes to emerging beauty and wellness brands that are pushing the boundaries of innovation, clean and contemporary products.

Moon Juice and Summer Fridays have been wonderful partners we’ve collaborated with to drive awareness and support during this unique economic period. Amanda Chantal Bacon and I both use each other’s products and are deeply aligned philosophically when it comes to products and brand, so we’ve recently partnered with them on live Sephora master classes with over 200 attendees, upcoming IRL events and gifted community mailers to discuss hair wellness from the inside out.

We’ve also partnered with more legacy brands like D.S. & Durga, a fragrance house I’ve respected since they launched almost 10 years ago. We collaborated with them on The Oil, which drove incredible awareness for a new audience who has been part of the D.S. & Durga community for a while.

We also recently partnered with the team at Summer Fridays for a limited-time GWP, with The Jet Lag Mask and The Renewal Mask offered on each other’s websites until supplies lasts. I admire what the Summer Fridays team has built, and it was fun to surprise and delight each other’s customers with our cult-favorite products.

Christina Garcia Co-Founder, Covey

The wellness customer has a strong alignment with our customer base and vice versa, so tapping into other wellness brands' audiences for awareness and new customers has been efficient for us.

We've specifically been partnering with wellness brands on social giveaways and content opportunities. Our holiday routine's lover gift guide did really well because we all cross-promoted one another and the audiences were so similar.

While it is a rocky time because there's such an affinity between our two industries, we're always brainstorming what can we bring to the table as a brand and vice versa, and it can be anything from a knowledge exchange like sharing what influencers have worked best for us or creating branded content together.

Jasmine Garnsworthy Founder, The Buff and Female Founder World

If a brand has enough inventory, sample swap gift-with-purchase collaborations with a likeminded, but non-competing brand (e.g., Susteau x Prima) can get your product into the hands of new potential customers. It's always a good idea to collect emails as part of the initiative and to enter leads into a welcome email flow with a new customer discount code.

We've seen partners swap anywhere from 100 to 2,000 sample units and add the gift-with-purchase option for orders over a specific value slightly above the existing AOV. These initiatives regularly increase conversions and average order value for the gifter.

At Female Founder World, we've lined up a number of these partnerships for our newsletter subscribers and members of our Geneva community through our platform Kizmet, and while the reach isn't as large as a digital channel, you are getting high quality leads when the partner is perfectly aligned. Both brands typically support the partnership on social media and over email, giving fresh content opportunities and additional exposure to each other's audiences.

Cody Levine Co-Founder, Twice

I have a pretty fun example of this. David Greenfeld, founder of Dream Pops, and I are working on a sampling initiative where we drop floss containers in his DTC shipments of his new Crunch product. The partnership is around the idea of indulging responsibly, candy + oral care cross-category support.

This video was something fun we did around the idea. And we’re attaching tags to the floss to communicate the story.

Brittney Ogike Founder and CEO, BeautyBeez

The downturn in the economy has presented a lot of uncertainty for new and emerging brands. There are a few things we can all do to sustain sales and enthusiasm for our brands. Working together to keep products affordable by offering discounts through cross-sales and -promotions is a way to navigate the volatility and maintain sales.

As consumers reassess priorities, brands can collab and offer bundled deals with essential products (i.e., a skincare brand paired with a haircare brand).

As a retailer, we are cultivating direct relationships with brands to reaffirm our positioning as the leader in multicultural beauty and bundling products at a discount to make them more affordable to our customers.

Vanessa Wade Founder, Wiley Body

As a brand, community is everything. I recently spoke with a few other business owners, and we’re all experiencing the same thing right now. Sales are down for a lot of businesses, and it’s really, really hard.

To help with this, I organized a local pop-up last month with six other brands. We each set up a table, we promoted it on social, and the turnout was incredible. I find that tapping into the local community can be a really great thing. Everyone knows what’s going on in the economy, so people just want to help more than ever.

Running a business can be very isolating, especially if you’re a solo entrepreneur. I love setting up monthly calls with other entrepreneurs. This is such a great way to talk about your wins, what you’re struggling with, helping to troubleshoot an issue, and just having honest conversations with others who understand the ups and downs of owning a brand.

This is also such a great way to swap resources and connections. One brand might be struggling with their shipping facility, and it’s easy to shoot an intro email with a 3PL you have experience with or I may need a label supplier and another brand can send me theirs.

After almost three years in business, I can say I’ve built up a great group of founders and we chat on the daily. Don’t be afraid to reach out to other business owners to ask questions. Building a support system has been vital for me.

Lisa Mattam Founder and CEO, Sahajan

I believe that partnerships and collaborations executed perfectly but nimbly are what make the indie beauty community so exciting, recession or not. We have done gift-with-purchase offers with brands like Cheekbone Beauty and Axiology in the interest sharing like-minded gorgeous brands with our customer base. These kinds of activities allow for brands not only to create interesting sales lifts beyond discounting, but they allow for us to tell the stories of our founder friends.

Sébastien Tardif Co-Founder, Veil Cosmetics

In my case, after being in the cosmetics industry for years, I reached out to other indie brand owners that I knew would have my back. I am the first one to compare notes with my fellow indie brand owners/friends and share advice or tips whenever we can whether in passing at trade shows or via DM on socials.

We all know too well that our businesses are fragile as we do not have the billions of dollars that some of the bigger brands have to compete. It is important for us to rally behind one another when one needs it.

Because of the hack I suffered on Facebook and having lost my 50,000 followers, I decided to put together a giveaway to help me get more followers and reached out to Melanie Mills Hollywood, Senna Cosmetics and Sidney Grace to help me. They all quickly agreed to participate and the giveaway has been live since Monday. I would do the same for them and will always remember the brands that have jumped in to provide a helping hand during these hard times.

Visibility and followers are everything in order to be able to get our products seen and heard in this very competitive market. That’s become especially true since the beginning of the pandemic actually. Everybody is now competing online and trying to get more visibility, and indie brands have less of a voice and less budget to compete than the bigger brands.

I am very thankful for these other indie brand owners and am happy that the giveaway is helping us all equally gain more visibility and acquire new followers.

Andrea Lisbona Founder and CEO, Touchland

While we all have hectic lives with nonstop meetings every single day, I always carve some time to touch base with my fellow founders and entrepreneurs to open up and talk about our challenges, failures, learnings and best practices. We are all going through the same issues and sharing our experiences helps us understand that we are not alone and the route to success is like a rollercoaster.

As Steve Jobs said, no sane person would go through this bumpy journey if you don’t passionately love what you do. Therefore, I always find it very fulfilling to talk to other founders that are as passionate as I am to discuss their visions and share how they have navigated through rocky situations.

Jie Gao Founder, Versine Skincare

Since Versine's beginning, we have always worked with and leaned on other like-minded brands to grow together in the skincare and baby spaces. Because Versine started during the pandemic, a lot of our collaborations have been online in the forms of joint promotions and giveaways, founder livestreams and content collaborations. We are able to leverage our joint audiences to grow our customer base. Additionally, I think the storytelling can be much more powerful and engaging.

Some past and future collaborations include:

• Since one of our chief mandates is worry-free, pregnancy-friendly skincare, when we launched, we did a joint giveaway with Kiinde, an awesome breast milk collection system. This started our email list!
• For AAPI month, we collaborated with a bunch of AAPI-founded brands—Emilie Heathe, Three Ships, Bloomeffects, Love & Pebble—for a massive giveaway with a series of livestreams with the various founders. We saw growth to our Instagram account and an uptick in sales.
• Versine in recent months has paired with Kiss Kiss Goodnight and La Luer for Instagram Lives. We are in adjacent spaces (baby skincare and skincare device, respectively), but we also have a lot in common (a scientific approach to skincare, less-is-more philosophy), so our collaborations really engaged our customers.

Additionally, as a bootstrapped brand, every decision or mistake is comparatively more costly for us. For me, the best way to avoid mistakes and to find great people to work with and projects to try is word of mouth.

I chat with other brand founders like La Luer's Nicole Chau, Chébé du Tchad’s Salwa Petersen and Emilie Heathe's Emily Rudman about photographers, social media experts, paid advertising consultants, renderers, influencers, influencer platforms, etc. It's amazing how much you can learn, and you make friends along the way.

Finally, basic but often forgotten, we can share costs and resources! For example, La Luer's founder and I are planning a photoshoot together to share studio and model costs.

Shelly Ann Winokur Founder, Kiss Kiss Goodnight

I enjoy supporting and collaborating with other skincare brands. I've met many brand founders on Instagram. Sometimes we just support each other by liking and commenting on each other's posts. Other times, we chat on DM or jump on a call, share our stories and struggles, and even do product swaps. I've participated in giveaways and Lives on Instagram with a few brands that complement our product line.

I've also met many founders via accelerator programs. We are usually part of a Slack community, and we get to support each other in more strategic ways.  We share vendor recommendations and marketing and sales strategies.

Most recently, I participated in an in-person meetup with several founders as part of an accelerator graduation program. My conversations with them helped change my mindset about how we approach marketing and sales. We are all on a group chat text, cheering each other on and celebrating each other's accomplishments.

If you have a question you’d like Beauty Independent to ask beauty entrepreneurs, please send it to editor@beautyindependent.com.