Truly the best profile on Substack for founders - Priscilla Jiminian (subscriber)

Welcome, to all of my new followers :) This week’s newsletter is free.

If you’re new to discovering Slutty Founder — I’m so glad you’re here!

In the latest installment of the healing my visibility wound saga, I took it to the next level and said yes to being a guest on the She’s So Lucky Podcast.

You can watch here or listen in on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.

The episode is fittingly titled Stop Taking Yourself Off the Pedestal and I wanna zero in on my biggest takeaway in regards to that, which is this idea of feigned helplessness.

In the podcast I share a moment when I met with an investor who pointed out that I was not owning my narrative or my power as a founder.

She had to make me aware that I had accomplished all that I had in my former business because I knew what I was doing—even went on to say I was 10x more impressive than any male founder she’s used to encountering. But I was telling my story as though my successes were the result of luck I didn’t earn. I had acted like the things that happened to me (both the challenges, but more so the wins), were accidents rather than the outcomes of my own effort and skill.

Weak. Pipsqueak. Powerless!!!!

I hate the thought of how I carried myself in hindsight, because today I would NEVER.

This habit that followed me from chapter to chapter—across title changes, and in business and personal evolutions — was really a way of avoiding the weight of high expectations.

I just could not keep my light on for too long.

And I couldn’t have people expecting too much out of me, because that would mean I had to actually (God forbid) deliver.

You know how you're new on a job and low-key don't want to get past the 90-day probationary period because after that, the whole babe-in-the-woods act gets old and people start expecting you to actually (GOD FORBID) do your job well?

That was me in rooms I had every right to own.

I think about my adolescence even— in soccer passing the ball to my center when I should have CLEARLY taken the goal, or keeping my gorgeous vibrato a secret from my violin teacher (for years!!!) because she hadn’t taught it to me yet and I didn’t want to outpace her other star pupil.

Second best felt safe and (dare I say) relatable.

So I feigned incompetence in exchange for smooth sailing.

The most embarrassing cringe thing is that everyone around me knew I was more than capable of excelling at anything that came my way — I wasn’t even fooling anyone with my little act!

What was my refusal to being held to a higher pedestal?

I unpacked more recently in my life that a huge piece of me thought I was owed some reprieve for all that I had been through in my life in general; that I was due some relief however it came. Helplessness felt relieving. The man in the sky would sort it out on my behalf eventually. Or I’d get another random stroke of that type of luck I needed, but didn’t earn.

I believed that struggle would automatically be balanced by inevitable success (which makes sense for the language I used and the way I carried myself with that investor).

My mentality was that my struggles had just happened to me, therefore I was looking at my success like it just happened to me.

(Neither of those things are true).

This mindset created a strange sense of passivity.

I changed the fabric of my DNA the moment I came face-to-face with this utterly painful realization: NO ONE is coming to f*cking save you!!!!

You have to stop feeling like you’re owed a break, or an advantage, or Will Smith as a father instead of the one you got.

I’m sorry that life’s not fair, but you just have to get over it (or stay stuck).

It’s about agency.

You’re going to have to be the one to claim and create for yourself. You have the power!

No one can fully step into your exact story, your vision, your role, or your level of responsibility for you. That is the piece that even privilege doesn’t make up for.

Wait for your next level of success to be delivered to your doorstep if you want to.

Are you gonna just stay home???

On that.

The crazy thing about life is that you can just decide. You don’t need a qualifier, a graduation, a shift, a sign, or a specific moment to green light you into the next level. You can literally JUST DECIDE.

Act like you know what the hell is up.

I find the only challenge is staying in character.

On that.

and I spoke in the podcast about toxic relatability or at least the idea that we shrink ourselves to find community, validation, or acceptance in it. admitted she used to do it for attention (LOLOL as a Leo). I used to do it as a reflex back into that childhood sense of safety; creating a sense of humility when standing in my light felt too indulgent.

You don’t need to reduce yourself to become relatable towards struggle. Why are you so desperate to reduce yourself beneath where people should (or want to) see you to be? Why are you looking to escape the excellence your audience holds you to?

NEWSFLASH!! There is no relatability in being the best.

Y’all better get like Lil’ Kim!

“While they struggle and strive, we pick which Benz to drive!”

Don’t feel bad! If you do, start a charity, or write a check.

If you need to, act it out! You can literally get there by acting. Otherwise we wouldn’t have so many scammers, would we? If there were no market for method acting your way to success, there literally wouldn’t be a multi-series show (my favorite by the way), called American Greed.

Act the f*cking part and stick to your goddamn script!!!!

Hold the identity even before you feel ready for it and EVEN if the job changes.

Truly the best profile on Substack for founders - Priscilla Jiminian (subscriber)

I’m not a perfect person. Apparently, I can’t concentrate or engage with my work in any meaningful way when I have something big on the agenda.

Did I ever tell you about the guy I matched with on Raya and he was like what brought you out to LA and I said “my fame” and he unmatched me? He wasn’t that hot anyway.

I do want to be very clear that despite how comedic and verbally expressive I am, I am actually extremely uncomfortable with my inevitably growing fame and my inner propensity towards fame.

Anyway, I canceled my ADHD appointment this week to instead film a guest spot on one of my favorite podcasts because I have a commitment to saying yes to things that are aligned—even if they may at first make me deeply, deeply uncomfortable. Plus, I’m sure you guys find me enjoyable off meds????

I always think I’ve mostly outgrown my fear of being seen until the opportunity gets bigger. I almost psyched myself out about this, because this pod is kind of a big deal, but I did a bunch of EFT tapping to help manage the doubt and anxiety and you know what else? I took this moment off the pedestal! I feel like a huge piece of recognizing the source of my anxiety (when it shows up) has been noticing when things start to feel ‘end all be all’ — as if I only have one shot. Never! You’ve gotta think that everything you do is the start to that much more excellence, even if it bombs. Who cares!

The taping ended up going really well (obviously) and I had SO much fun.

I can’t wait for you guys to see it!

It will be out everywhere you get your podcasts next week.

Point is, I’m glad I moved through the discomfort even if that left me with a lot to catch up on this week.

SO much beauty news. Acquisitions, launches, celebrity stuff, etc. Let's get into it.

COMING NEXT TUESDAY!

On Alix Earle’s launch of Reale Actives, I don’t think there’s much to overthink.

Personally, I’m surprised we aren’t seeing this brand a lot sooner, especially given how central acne has been to her personal narrative. Beauty is usually a top of mind money grab and she’s documented her acne journey so prolifically.

I won’t dedicate too much to analysis here because it’s only been two days and the topic of Reale Actives has already been discussed at length. I simply don’t find Alix or Alix discourse that interesting, although I’m not mad at her!

Dare I say….(sigh) I loved the ‘wtfisalixdoing’ campaign. The marketing + content strategy really got my attention. I was also pleased with how she seeded a diverse group of creators from what I saw. This is where my praise starts and ends.

Some thoughts summed up:

• What's surprising is how unproven the launch feels for a brand that is literally rooted in acne. No testimonials, no before-and-afters, no visible proof of efficacy — not even with this brand having took so long to launch!!!

• I visited the website in search of some kind of before and after moment and sank into immediate disappointment once I got to a collection of social media acne journey videos ALL OF ALIX.

  The only time the website features anyone else is for professional imagery. There are no examples outside of Alix. Am I to trust it works because Alix’s acne journey has been so public? Even though the only thing that cured her was Accutane?

• Is this to replace Accutane or be used alongside Accutane? We need clarification in the product use messaging here.

• Sex doesn’t sell like y’all think it does. The hyper-sexual tone feels excessive and honestly, a bit tired. Why am I looking at a photo of Alix in her bra and panties on the landing page? It’s kind of like Sydney Sweeney’s SYRN in this way where I feel the creative feels disconnected from the actual product promise and audience need aka what female consumers actually want. Acne is vulnerable, emotional, and often rooted in deep insecurity. If I’m a chick with acne, I don’t need to see Alix standing in front of a medicine cabinet half naked to sell me on acne treatment. We already know the body is cute + skinny and trust that the boobs are done, girl! I DO however, think this visual messaging would work if there were currently spots of acne on her face, because it gives people a sort of — she has this thing on her face where she would otherwise be perfect, so because there’s a flaw I can point out, I feel less insecure with my own self, and can hate her less and buy in.

  This was the psychology behind her rise to fame, btw and why her followers conflated her accessibility with “relatability.”

  why is she holding her phone instead of some product :(

• You know I always get on the name thing with celebrity brands. I genuinely think celebrity teams overestimate how much a celeb's name elevates a project. Are we allergic to creativity? Reale Actives reads more activewear to me than acne. Hate.

Read more

Truly the best profile on Substack for founders - Priscilla Jiminian (subscriber)

Whenever I go viral, I again become aware that I’m probably not the best version of myself in my comment section. Like I feel like the Philly in me just awakens, you know what I mean. Anyway, that awareness has prompted me to a phone detox. I’ve also started sleeping with my phone on airplane mode again— I don’t know why I ever stopped! Please do so as well! The best sleep of my life and not yelling at strangers in my comment section has alchemized into TWO newsletters this week. ‘Weekly-ish,’ she said.

I also had time to get into a FANTASTIC book, Buckeye which found me on a walk earlier this week on one of those sunny days before it snowed. I highly suggest it if you can get past the author’s clear fixation towards making every character blonde, even the side ones.

After that I’m starting ’s The Raise, which I’m also itching to get into.

Will I start incorporating book recs on here?

I will say that if you’re a brand founder or marketer, I HIGHLY suggest you start reading more fiction. It’s a subconscious way to develop a better instinct for world building.

Inside Jobs

• Amika is hiring freelancers across social, content creation, video editing, design + more. Apply here (must be New York City based)

• Dune Suncare is looking for an E-comm / Shopify freelancer

• One Skin is hiring for various roles from Copy to Social Media

• Rare is looking for a beauty-obsessed writer to join their Creative/Copy team for the Summer

• Ouai is looking for a Copywriter (temp)

• Aunt Flow is looking for a Distribution Channel Manager

Funding Opportunities

• LvlUp Ventures is backing 250 CPG companies over the next 365 days from Pre-Seed through Series B. Pitch your company in 10 words or less

• It’s the FINAL DAY to apply to XRC Brand Builder Grant

  It’s a short and easy application. Don’t miss out.

• For access to other available grants: DOWNLOAD the updated 2026 Grant Database (free)

• You can also access my winning Grant Strategy Workbook and Cheatsheet here

News

• In case you missed my thoughts on this viral question: Does it cost $10M to run a beauty brand?

I also wrote about it here:

I need your thoughts!

Other Happenings

• Ulta just released their Q4 earnings with a “better than planned financial performance,” reporting $3.90 billion vs. $3.80 billion expected.

  I have no idea why I’m rooting so hard for Ulta, I don’t even shop there. Probably because they actually support their founders.

• I may have to start covering Quince….I feel like dupes have more of our loyalty than we're willing to cop to. Everybody can’t be at Reformation buying it fresh off the rack (at least that’s what the numbers say)!

  Why else would they have just raised $500M?

• Highsnobiety recently published something this week on how groceries are becoming cultural goods and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. Mainly because I think a lot about where the needle moves once traditional status symbols become democratized. I’d staunchly agree that what’s in your belly has become the new marker.

• To the surprise of no one, the e.l.f edge control launch has not been doing hot…

I hate that we live in a time where we can’t tell whether or not them not seeding many Black creators for this launch was a fumble or a strategic play.

Dare I say… I had a feeling when I covered it last week, that this would not go well 😭

• Esteé Lauder is suing Jo Malone over the use of her name on a Zara fragrance — her name, which they have the rights to, mind you. The packaging says "Created by Jo Malone CBE, founder of Jo Loves." ELC says those words breach the contract she signed when she sold them her name in 1999. Now she's being sued.

  Jo Malone has said publicly that this deal was the biggest mistake of her life.

  This is exactly what I DIDN’T want for Pat McGrath.

• is an example that you can be radically outspoken and still get ahead in life. Needed this news.

• I loved learning about Tyra Booker this week and her move from Senior Director of Global Social at Ilia to Assistant Vice President of Marketing over at Rare. We can never have too many gorgeous women in high places, I just feel???

• David must be having some really sh*tty astrology transits this year

Here’s the founder’s interview in Feed Me.

Anyways, it’s Friday. I don’t have any more news, I just needed an excuse to talk to you guys.

When I tell you I can’t wait for dinner this evening because I’m going out and I’m ordering this pesto and pistachio gemelli al dente that’s about to BUSS SO HARD!!!! And I’m ordering a Negroni to wash it down, even though I tell people I don’t drink.

Ugh my mouth is watering just thinking about it!!!

x,

SF

Truly the best profile on Substack for founders - Priscilla Jiminian (subscriber)

Hello and welcome back to our show :) What a gorgeous, sunny day to be writing in from the East Coast!!

Quick thing before we get into this week’s newsletter:

ICYMI—Sephora has shocked us all and opened up their Accelerator program this month. You have just 21 days left (March 31 deadline) to apply.

I’ve been in the weeds of this application and have even helped a client land a spot. The hardest part isn’t just filling it out. It’s making every answer weave together to tell one cohesive brand story. I am happy to handle it for you.

I only have a few spots left. If you’d like to work together let me know here.

Does it cost $10M to run a beauty brand?

In a recent episode of the Gloss Angeles Podcast, David Yi — founder of the now-shuttered Korean beauty brand Good Light Cosmetics — made a claim that quickly spread across our feeds.

When asked what he thinks it “realistically costs to run a beauty brand in 2026,” he said it takes $10M to truly be competitive and cover things like collaborations, your marketing force in retail and to stay visible amongst the competition.

“Those are just table stakes right now,” he says.

As tough as that figure is to stomach, a surprising number of founders I know didn't flinch at it. With the Rhodes and Rares of the world, $10 million starts to feel like the bare minimum just to be taken seriously.

So does it take $10M to build a beauty brand?

Dare I say….I highly disagree! Here’s why.

What does a successful beauty brand even look like?

Read more

Slutty Founder is a weekly-ish newsletter about the business of beauty.

Truly the best profile on Substack for founders - Priscilla Jiminian

Hiiii. It’s me.

What’s been up??!?! What a February it was for SF.

I’ll have you know I’ve exceeded my growth goals for this platform last month —and, really, I have you to thank for that because apparently y’all love when I get out my belt!!!!

I’m not going to be coy about how proud of myself I am for releasing my first episode of “whatever it was” (still not yet calling it a podcast), mostly because of the anxiety I had around losing my light and having to re-beat my face, re-do my hair and set up my tech identically the following day for continuity…. da-da-da-da-da!

I can’t lie—with all of your encouragement and the predilection I have towards hearing myself speak, I find it safe to say you can expect more from me on camera.

I also find it safe to say that this conversation is very far from over.

My reporting on The Fifteen Percent Pledge has only been the beginning of a much larger conversation around how Black founders are actively reimagining how they build and fund their businesses in ways that actually reflect the moment we're in.

Here’s what happened this past week:

• ICYMI: I released my very first video episode on a deep dive of The Fifteen Percent Pledge. You can watch it here or on Youtube.

• The woman who makes a business out of ‘championing’ Black businesses doesn't seem to think they need more funding. See for yourself. I do wonder if Aurora caught wind of the fact that we’re honking the horn on her, because she’s been unusually active in people's comment sections this week.

  

  

  via Instagram and Threads

  Her answer to "what's our plan?" is apparently independence from investors and community dollars — while running a grant program on a VC model (*allegedly*). What is her answer to solving the visibility and awareness problem for brands we don’t know exist? Rootwork?

• If @wilgloryy hasn’t come across your timeline yet, you need to reset your algorithm. She is into 100 days of a daily cold email campaign petitioning MacKenzie Scott to deploy $1 billion to 1,000 Black women founders at $1M each.

  In tandem, if you've been told no by a VC and felt it indeed was that deep, she wants to hear from you: wilglory@animairis.com.

  

• Sephora Accelerate is open. I actually have had a client accepted into this program. If you too want my help with your submission, let me know here.

  Unlike what we’ve learned about the Fifteen Percent Pledge’s x Sephora Beauty Grant, you actually have a shot at this one. Application deadline is March 31st. Let’s make some ✨magic✨

• On the Hanifa pause:

Read more

Slutty Founder is a weekly-ish newsletter about the business of beauty.

You guys, I did a thing and recorded my first long-form video episode for Slutty Founder. I resisted this for the longest because of the sheer work, hair, makeup, phone accessories, set design, and editing it takes (in fullest transparency this took me 2 work days to put together and my left eye has started twitching again from looking at my screen for too long—keep this in mind before pressuring your outspoken best friend to start her own podcast), but I’d say it was worth it to get my belt out on The Fifteen Percent Pledge and give them the rest of their (overdue) spanking.

After publishing The Concept of the Fifteen Percent Pledge and posting my initial video critiquing the selective pattern of their Sephora Beauty Grant, the picture that emerged was bigger than I could capture through written word alone.

Who knew this org would be the impetus to me (potentially) committing to a podcast!

Anyway, back onto the Beauty Influencer Awards, I mean the Fifteen Percent Pledge.

With the outpouring of responses from people who have claimed to have either interacted with Aurora James, the Pledge, and even her brand Brother Vellies, I was absolutely incensed to dig deeper.

And the deeper I dug, the more questions I had.

It was undeniable that there was a much larger story to be told than what some might dismiss as just some failed applicants who were jealous they never won the Sephora Beauty Grant.

Some of the questions I developed were around:

• The Pledge’s origins

• The money

• The defunding of the Achievement Award (3-tier monetary grant)

• Their relationship with Sephora

• That dreaded application process

• The spectacle — WTF is that Gala even about?

In this 30-minute dive, I break it all down.

I’ve gotta be honest, up until the final hour, I genuinely considered paywalling this, not only because of the insane level of work it took to piece together, but because I probably don’t need a black Suburban parked outside my house á la They Cloned Tyrone. But I don’t accept that I came this far turn back and be p*ssy, especially after preaching in my earlier article about transcending the fear of speaking up. Maybe more importantly, I feel a duty to hold up the conversation I started.

This investigation took so much yapping, phone storage, and more off-days from my gym routine than I want to allow on my injectable peptide allegations journey. If you have it in your heart for reparations, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. I am an open channel for wealth.

Also, it’s how I’ll be able to keep this up without having to worry about who I’m pissing off.

upgrade to paid

Love you guys!!!

Enjoy!!

xox,

SF

The reason I say this is specific is because I think more often we hear from the perspective of those who struggle to believe they can, and that has just never been my ministry. I’ve always been an enormous dreamer, with an aggressive appetite for success and I always assumed that I could have whatever I wanted— the homes, the successful businesses, the mega-yacht as a push present, the celebrity boyfriend (whom I no longer want).

That’s not where this is headed.

What I want to talk about is this pattern I had to overcome of moving the goalpost by always working towards becoming worthy of the things that I wanted instead of just …thinking I was worthy of the things that I wanted.

My issue was never belief. My issue was the belief that I hadn’t earned having it in the now.

stop trying to fit the bill

I told myself I needed the right shoe, the right bag, the right apartment with southern lighting, the right hairstyle; to get back to my smart-lipo’d pandemic body, to be able to slide into those light-wash Re/Done jeans I refuse to sell—only then would everything click!

What the fuck was that?

Plot twist: even when you get those things you’ll still find a way to push the goalpost out once again!!! Even when I had everything I wanted it didn’t stop me from thinking I had to work on becoming more more more. I was rarely satisfied with who I was, wholly, in the present.

At the end of 2020 I moved into the best loft in all of Philadelphia—that had a literal rock climbing wall, mind you —(which I never climbed by the way) because I told myself having this thing would motivate and encourage me to create more. I don’t even think I made 20 videos in that apartment before I moved to LA a few years later. I certainly didn’t write anything. I did book more plastic surgery consultations.

I told myself the same lies when I got to LA.

Maybe I’ll be more motivated to show up when I move from Downtown to WeHo.

What do you think I did when I got to WeHo? Girl, I was so full of shit.

I just couldn’t sit still with myself!

It’s a harsh realization to come to that the reason you hesitate and hide behind more self-improvement is because you don’t accept yourself. Like I once did, you might think you accept yourself, but if you feel this constant need to work on things, you probably don’t.

Years of putting everyone else's voice and authority above your own will convince you that you have to be working towards becoming everything but who you are RIGHT NOW. You collect 99 opinions and next thing you know you're contorting yourself into 99 different people. At some point it gets exhausting being a damn shapeshifter. What’s so wrong about being you anyway? Are you in the Epstein files or something?

Like, literally it gets to a point.

Why create more time and distance between you and the things you want?

I don’t believe in working on myself because I don’t believe a lady has to prove her value through greater effort. I really hate this for women because too often we’re socialized to pick up another journal, or become a better person, or investigate the things we do to put others off. Do men do this? I don’t know a single person with a Y chromosome that is this introspective or that works overtime to fit the bill.

The truth of the matter is this—if you don’t accept yourself, you’re just always going to be waiting for your ships to come in. What are you going to pick up another journal in the meantime? Wait for a sign that things are on their way? Pathetic. More work and external validation can’t replace self-acceptance. And accepting yourself can’t be conditional. Further, it has to be radical. So you might as well settle into yourself.

Do it even if your lighting’s bad.

What better way to kick off our first Black History Month newsletter by giving The Fifteen Percent Pledge their lashings.

This is a conversation, one that (based on my DMs this week) a lot of us have been afraid to have.

I posted a video the other day and I asked a simple question:

“You wanna know why they call it The Fifteen Percent Pledge? It’s because you have a zero point fifteen percent chance of winning if you’re not a famous influencer.”

Was I wrong? lol.

Like most organizations that claim to be Black people focused, it’s evident by now that there’s a clear gap between what it claims to be and what it actually does.

One tell—and perhaps what stoked the flame of the latest online fodder—is who the Fifteen Percent Pledge decides to award their Sephora Beauty Grant to. The pattern has looked the same since its inauguration, except this year folks seemed really fed up.

When you look at all of the past recipients, a few things come into focus pretty clearly.

Each brand awarded hits at least 3/5 of these things:

• A very well known / socially visible founder (ex: Issa Rae - Sienna Naturals)

• Have already won the Sephora Accelerate

• Is already retailing in Sephora (or entering Sephora)

• Has a significant social media following / online presence

• Has a personal connection to one of the judges (allegedly)

I’m not going to argue that these brands are any less deserving or need the money any less than smaller brands do. I’m certain they work very hard and deserve to be congratulated. It’s not their fault they’re superstars. As one friend of mine pointed out on my 4th phone call that afternoon as I was prepping lamb chops—if you took the time to apply in the first place it’s probably because you could use the funds. You know how this industry is. Objects are less shiny than they appear.

Believe it or not, I’m not against cronyism. It’s what makes our world go round. I’ve said it myself that when you’re feeling behind in life it’s because you need better friends.

But why does Fifteen Percent Pledge encourage all of these other founders to apply (even going as far to reach out to non-Sephora affiliated brands directly) and submit essay level questions, detailed financials (unusual, BTW, outside of final rounds), a deck, AND a video component knowing they don’t have a shot?

Do they just have all of these people apply to make it look like there’s work actually being done? Does this add context to their market knowledge?

My biggest critique remains the disconnect in the messaging of the program.

How are you betting big on these Black and Brown-owned brands, but you’re not putting your biggest dollars behind the non-obvious choice? Isn’t that at the heart of being disenfranchised? That people aren’t willing to bet on you because you’re not their most safe or legible choice? It’s like how VC’s love giving moneyed White men even more money. How does this make Fifteen Percent Pledge any different from those existing institutional gatekeepers? A question I’m not afraid to ask!

After I posted my video I was flooded with DMs, voice notes, and phone calls from founders who have been sitting on this feeling about The Fifteen Percent Pledge and its founder Aurora James for a while now, and just needed somebody to say it.

The response painted a much broader picture that the Sephora Beauty Grant is just one way in which the Community thinks the program falls short.

Among some of the messages I received and have permission to share:

Via Threads

To add insult to injury was this video (referenced by a commenter above):

@monicastylemuse

Monicastylemuse on Instagram: "…😔"

Monica, I’m really sorry that happened to you.

The concept of being left out at an event rooted in equity and inclusion….

In our star-obsessed reality, the celebrity attendees for the Gala naturally overshadow the messaging about the actual initiative. I’d imagine it challenging for an outsider to deduce what the Pledge is actually about. Especially if I can’t tell what change has actually been enacted. And if my DMs are any indicator —nobody can.

Beyond the grants, what does the Pledge actually do? What does 15% commitment of shelf space even mean? How does that guarantee Sephora doesn’t put your ass in the back or on the side like they tried Ami Cole? Not many of the Black founders I know have much problem getting into retail. The real problem tends to be lack of capital to sustain and scale. I’d be curious to see if they have any data / details on how the founders they back are able to scale through retail successfully and remain in store.

As per a recent Vogue article Aurora says:

“Since launching the Pledge, we’ve helped place more than 1,000 Black-owned brands on major retail shelves nationwide, and last year alone, we distributed over $1 million in grants.”

As a beauty editor friend of mine pointed out to me, why don’t we hear much from of any of the 1,000 Black brands placed on shelves and whom FPP distributed said $1M+ dollars to? Girl, you know all the Black people in this industry know each other! LMAO! Plus we tend to share our wins pretty loudly.

We know at least publicly that in 2025 they awarded: RedDrop ($200,000), Brooklyn Tea ($35,000), and Bernard James ($15,000) in their non-Sephora related awards.

Who else is there?

I failed math a couple of times, except for the year my teacher was an ephebophile so my count could be off.

One of the Pledge's recent initiatives according to Aurora also includes: “an AI training initiative to ensure Black founders aren’t left behind as technology reshapes business.”

I’m sorry WHAT lmao. Girl, it’s called get on Claude and create an account. Who needs extensive AI training to run a Shopify store?! N*ggas need money!!

Why are we still weaponizing incompetence when it comes to the actual needs of Black and Brown foundersssss. I’m draineddddd. Please bore someone elseee.

The O’jays said it best and I haven’t heard it since. Say it with me on the count of three.

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY!!!!!

At this point, The Fifteen Percent Pledge seems more of a concept than a commitment and throwing in Beyoncé adjacent high-profile figures is what has allowed them to skate by.

As for the actual gala which one of my followers referred to as an “initiation,” I still don’t forget about how they had Kim Kardashian posted up as an attendee last year fresh off her MAGA debut. Is there anyone responsible for reading the god damn room?

And you almost have to ask — at $10k a seat for non-celeb attendees ($6k I hear is the Black people discount) — I’m curious as to where gala funds are being appropriated and how it’s gone to support the initiative in tangible ways.

At this point, I wouldn’t put it past them that they do this event in February because it overlaps with Black History Month—a convenience so they don’t have to pretend to care about our Black asses March-January.

I don’t know if you can tell (and I know it’s not funny), but I swear I cannot stop laughing the more I write.

I’ve resolved that we can’t pay these people too much mind, child. The world is a stage.

And in the future when there’s conversation to be had out loud, I want us to stop being so scary! I feel like this fear of speaking out against the many ways in which this industry has harmed so many of us is like an epigenetic trauma response—not rocking the boat once meant self-preservation and survival. But today I think it only keeps us further disenfranchised. Speaking up (to me) is literally curse-breaking.

Anyways. Y’all better get up and put y’all on some O’jays. It’s Black History Month still!!!!

xoxx,

SF

Welcome back and happy Friday.

To the influx of new subscribers both free and paid, welcome!

We cracked top 100 Rising in business last week and I want to thank you for your help on making it happen! Slutty Founder is starting to evolve at an exciting pace and words can’t capture how much I value your support and curiosity.

Let’s get into this week’s much anticipated newsletter.

I can’t believe I almost wrote The Pat McGrath story off as just another soon-to-be business closure. I was like: “Good for her!” You know I love when the girls walk away from something.

Well…this is a little more shell-shocking.

ICYMI: Legendary makeup artist Pat McGrath hit the headlines last year, from a slashed valuation, to an auction announcement, to last week’s bankruptcy filing.

Maison Margiela couture spring 2024 show in Paris; Courtesy / Pat McGrath

So many have asked for my opinion on this, but I initially thought the subject was too dull to even bother. The only thing that got my blood pumping were the misguided takes blaming the brand’s decline on its steep price point, as if we don’t live in the age of pay-in-4.

I knew there was something deeper under the hood and eventually something nudged at me to dig deeper.

This situation is far more complex than I anticipated. It isn’t a story that can be simplified to untimely market positioning or $125 eyeshadow palettes.

It’s a cautionary tale about what happens when you get in bed with the wrong people, and how the wrong kind of money can systematically dismantle a legendary brand and legendary human.

Although the brand says they are continuing in “an ordinary course of business”, what’s happening could very well mark the end of Pat McGrath Labs as we know it.

Buckle up.

Read more

Hi and welcome back.

Inside today’s newsletter: some culture stuff, more brand wind downs, Tiktok and techno-feudalism, and reflections from the trenches of entrepreneurship.

• Pat McGrath has officially filed for bankruptcy and canceled its auction. It feels like just yesterday we were celebrating a billion dollar valuation, I feel. The people who think this bankruptcy can be reduced to the brand simply being too expensive are not my kind of thinkers.

• released their first fragrance in collaboration with H&M. I love that I can tag them now that they’re on Substack.

  Am I the only person that can’t help but pocket-watch when I see big campaigns go out like this? Like the dancers, the hair, the makeup and choreography, an original song lmao. There is really money in this world.

Read more

Hello and welcome to our first newsletter of 2026.

It's been almost a year exactly since I published the essay that would become both my most-read piece about the most misunderstood moment of my career: Why I Shut My Award-Winning Beauty Business Down.

In the article I detail that what struck me most in the weeks following my shutdown was the readable disappointment from people who couldn’t pick up on why I seemed to be so genuinely unbothered about this massive change in my career.

In mid-2024, closing a brand was still treated as a jarring decision to make—an admission of defeat that made you ripe for example as a cautionary tale.

Underneath every nosy “what happened” really was “what happened so I can make out better than you did.”

Now with light of this year, the “why unfollow your dream?” narrative has come to feel a little low-EQ and entirely dated even though it’s such a short time later,.

2025 was the year of the beauty brand closure.

Beauty brands shut down in waves.

Here are a few to jog your memory (some of which I’ve written about here):

• Ami Cole

• Youthforia

• Futurewise

• Ren Skincare

• LVMH offloading it’s 50% stake in Fenty Beauty

• Pat McGrath Labs (assets up for sale)

• SKNMUSE

The announcements came so frequently that by year's end, we'd become desensitized to such news.

Even a number of close friends of mine with brands still open confessed to me their serious thoughts about shutting operations down—many of their brands well-known and critically acclaimed.

2025 was a reckoning.

And this year, so many founders were left wondering—why keep pouring my labor, capital, and identity into a slot machine that feels less and less rewarding?

Oh, what life was before we blamed the algorithm

The dominant beauty playbook from roughly 2016–2023 looked like this:

Discovery → DTC → Community → Retail Validation → Mass Distribution

Once upon a time you launched with a hero product and a good founder story.

You built community through Instagram, cultivated yourself some brand ambassadors. You proved concept through DTC, then leveraged that traction to secure investment and then larger retail channels. From there, maybe you’d scale internationally or become an acquisition target for a conglomerate looking to capture your audience.

This model worked because consumer attention was more abundant. Efficient CAC was achievable, and retail still signaled inevitable expansion. [Some] founders could still raise capital based on potential and the assumption was that scale would eventually solve for the unit economics.

As of today these variables have fundamentally shifted, the most notable to me being retail.

Landing a dream retailer is no longer a benchmark for inevitability.

With the influence of channels like Tiktok Shop + Live Shopping, in store retail is no longer a vital discovery or growth channel. One of beauty's best-kept secrets is that department stores like Nordstrom and Bloomingdale's place the smallest PO’s! I’m talking like 12 units across a SKU. They’re not buying by the boatload, like unseasoned founders fantasize about.

Beyond the tiny orders, many of these retailers are barely staying afloat themselves.

Saks has dominated retail news this year with their financial struggles. They still owe one of my girlfriends an invoice.

And let’s not even start on Sephora who is developing a bit of a reputation as a place where indie brands go to die. To win in that store, you have to play by their rules, which is hard and expensive.

Nearly all of the shuttered brands I listed above counted Sephora as a retail partner. It goes to show that treating Sephora as the holy grail shouldn’t hold such weight.

Aspiration is dead

Image // Alyssa Powell for Business Insider

In an economy where the future feels illegible, consumers are buying products to self-regulate. Aspiration implies a future, which, by now, most Americans have stopped trying to envision.

Alongside this, I notice more brands de-elevating their brand equity in order to move faster and sell more. They’re consciously trading the cachet that comes from being selectively distributed in a market where the economy is tense and attention is short.

In other words: no one’s too good to trash it up a little in order to grow.

A few years ago, my friends and I with prestige brands would have turned our noses up at selling on TikTok Shop. Now, brands like Dieux and Topicals are performing well there—come to think of it—my first Dieux order was from TikTok Shop, even though the brand is also in Sephora. I’m still as equal a fan even though Tiktok Shop was my entryway.

Outside the prestige market, brands have more room to win, reaching an audience that wants value and convenience. On TikTok Shop, customers get a discount while the platform drives traffic and conversions for the brand, creating a mutually beneficial setup.

At the same time, aspirational channels are showing less upside, and brands that cling to them are leaving growth on the table.

This year, Ulta posted growth across major categories while Sephora declined—in Spring 2025, makeup was up 4% at Ulta vs. down 25% at Sephora; skincare up 17% vs. down 2%.

Consumers have stopped prioritizing aspiration over practicality. Sephora only offers one (aspiration), while Ulta prioritizes accessibility—operating like a grocery store for beauty. You can get a $10 product and a $60 product in one trip, with a loyalty system that actually pays you back.

Why stay where customers are pulling back when you can go where they’re actually spending?

A few days ago, it was announced that Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty ended their Sephora partnership, and is choosing to expand in 1,500 Ulta doors by February 1st, 2026. I think this captures that exact inflection point.

While I don’t pretend to understand the mind of an Ulta shopper as that store evokes a very specific overwhelm of me losing my mother as a child in the local neighborhood Caldor, I’m not delusional enough to think that prestige automatically equates to profitability.

I don’t think any brand builder who seriously wants to make any real money should dream about becoming the next Byredo right now.

Our relationship to entrepreneurship has changed for good (thank God)

For one, I’m glad walking away is becoming so popular.

The mechanics that once governed success (raise capital, scale methodically, build for institutional validation) are so over. We will see a wave of established brands continue to bow out, many of them fatigued from the unpredictability of a market that no longer rewards slow, strategic, predictive thinking.

The brand closures of 2025 can hardly be reduced to bad business decisions, which I think by now we collectively understand.

They reflect an entire shift in how attention is captured (discovery) and loyalty is won (incentive).

If the old playbook is dead and aspiration no longer drives purchase behavior as it once did, what does a winning strategy actually look like in 2026?

In the near future I see a few things:

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Hello and welcome back to my shit show.

The British Accent is back, although I fear it’s lost a bit of its whimsy.

With the exception of Miami, things have felt so slow this month. I’ve been reading (more than writing — at least publicly—and not feeling any guilt around owing you a newsletter), pilate-ing, cooking at home, and catching up on my shows.

With that, since Owning Manhattan was trending, I was reminded to share a career story with you that I’ve been holding out on although I’ve promised it for a while.

Why was I holding back on this humiliation ritual of a story when it adds such great context to my career journey and personal development?!

Few of you know this about me, but in one of my many former lives, I ingloriously did real estate. I say that as I do not consider this, nor the nature of that industry a bright spot in my career. Nonetheless, I’m very proud of what I did to become licensed as I did so with one shoe on my foot.

I’m sure there is a future lesson to takeaway from this, but I’ll leave it up to you to extract what that is.

Picture:

The year is 2015 and I am desperate. I’m living in New York, I’m a recent-ish college grad and nothing is really working out (obviously). I am, after all a 2008 millennial IYKYK—you know how it was. Robbed from a promised career path even after doing everything right. I got my degree, was a rockstar intern at several record labels, and even still ended up working at Bloomingdale’s Flagship on 59th Street in Contemporary, thinking to myself — what the HELL am I doing here!?!?!!!

Even with my retail background, Bloomingdale's ran far too tight a ship for me.

Commissioned sales meant showing up to work in my one good blazer and running around that massive store so much that my Toms started to unseam at the sole. The managers watched us like they had nothing better to do, because they didn’t—clocking in on our progress through the register every few hours to make sure we were hitting our individual numbers.

Naturally, as someone with an innate aversion to hard pay-rolled work, I was over it within weeks.

After a few months of this I had reached a breaking point.

I wasn’t going to get comfortable financially from this! I was already in commissioned sales — why didn’t I just transfer that experience over to getting my real estate license for bigger money? Then let that be my final straw.

I had 3 years worth of proof that the resume thing wasn’t working, I had been nearly job scammed resulting in a permanent block from Venmo for accepting a payment in Bitcoin, and I didn’t know what else I was going do to remain in New York at any cost.

As my interest in Bloomie’s rapidly waned, my manager pulled me to the side and said to me in her bone-chilling Australian accent that I could become great enough at this to buy a home one day, but it appeared too much as though I didn’t care. I looked down at the black and white checkered floors, took a long inhale through gritted teeth, and told her as though it were a revelation, that it was because I didn’t.

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There’s so much happening on the ground, or at least, I assume there is because I haven’t been invited. Who’s doing the work at these PR companies? I’m literally the Slutty Founder. Get real!

Mark these words for next year when I’m at Dior, but for today don’t feel sorry for me. I’m ready to go see about a m*n and a yacht.

What is it about a little sun and humidity that makes me want to act a fool?! And I do mean sexually.

Anyways, on Tuesday I caught up on my feed while my plane was in taxi to see the 2026 Forbes 30 Under 30 came out.

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A PR girlie I follow had won, as well as a handful of creators I follow (including Substackers and TikTokers). This intrigued me because it signaled a new direction the list was clearly moving in.

The media and social media categories are somehow separate, which feels both unnecessary and telling.

The discourse around this year’s list has been fascinating, particularly the disappointment.

I, for one, don’t think the list got any worse, I actually think it’s the most honest one we’ve had.

The Death of Founder Mythology

Some time ago, the Forbes 30 Under 30 celebrated 24 year-olds raising $30 million Series As off the strength of a deck and maybe a Stanford rec. That era produced its own mythology, one that encouraged a very specific delusion of success that even I was once heavily invested in.

There once was a time when every birthday made me sick to my stomach, knowing I was creeping closer to the Forbes Under 30 cutoff.

To think this was the type of shit that used to keep me up at night.

But after watching a generation of ‘visionary’ founders collapse under fraud charges, inflated valuations, and fantasy metrics, we can’t even pretend the Forbes 30 Under 30 list still means what it used to.

What The List Actually Reflects Now

The discourse around this year’s list is particularly interesting to me because of the cultural timing, the economic mood, and the collective disappointment.

This year’s list is made up of podcasters, short-form content creators, writers, and people who built audiences first, businesses second—some with no business or product at all.

Whatever aura the accolade used to have evaporated with the times. The cultural conditions that made the list feel aspirational simply don’t exist anymore, and honestly, I’m kind of happy to see it.

As a casual follower of some of the girls who won, I’m happy for them because it’s an achievement I once aspired to myself. Although I’d agree this year’s list does feel particularly lightweight. Not in a bad way, but in a way that’s feels irresponsible for me to ignore.

Perhaps it should be a good thing that the barrier to entry has dropped, and this goal of achieving the Forbes 30 Under 30 is no longer some mythic, untouchable prize. That it feels, at least on paper, more democratic.

It finally reflects the society we actually live in, not the fantasy world of lauding people whose prefrontal cortexes haven’t even fully developed, raising millions to reinvent some bullshit.

The Performance of Competence

This year’s list is a symptom of something bigger in that we’ve fundamentally changed what we’re measuring.

We’re realizing extraordinary competence was never what we were actually rewarding in the first place. The old system that claimed to measure vision and innovation was just measuring who could perform those things most convincingly.

The attention economy has fundamentally shifted the need to be attached to a product, which, if I’m honest is one of many reasons I shut my own company down. The way I was convinced I had to build something to be validated and worthy of being seen and rewarded, instead of just… allowing myself to be seen and rewarded.

You really don’t need the company as the vehicle. Shamelessness alone is enough to bring home the gold.

The attention economy isn’t the only economy that matters, but it’s perhaps the most visibly rewarded. Attention converts to everything now—money, credibility, opportunity, legitimacy.

Even corporate jobs now are rewarding public persona.

Look at Vivian Tu of Your Rich BFF, moving from corporate → creator → corporate again at SoFi.

She’s not an outlier. This year, Forbes included literal employees(!) on their list. I never thought we would see that.

In the age of a 30 second video and the portfolio career, you don’t need to build brick by brick anymore. You just. need. attention.

I think this shift is permanent.

What Forbes Is Actually Rewarding

Forbes itself is responding to this reality.

Contrary to popular belief you actually don’t have to pay or apply to be on this list. I know because I was approached to be on a couple years ago and I couldn’t bring myself to lie about the fact that I had already been 32 for 9 months.

The recent Forbes list is rewarding those who are positioned exactly where attention and trust are flowing. I noticed a shift in coverage which has gone from writing about how much money was raised, to writing about the brand deals Forbes’ honorees have landed.

The Forbes list has become a single node in the economic ouroboros of attention. Content generates attention, attention becomes the product, the product becomes more content, you get more content from the content. You get paid from content, become content in life from your content. The contentification of the list itself is it’s own form of content!

Why the Fantasy Doesn’t Work Anymore

The Forbes 30 Under 30 from five years ago celebrated twenty somethings raising $30 million Series As, promising to revolutionize whatever or tokenize whatever.

We know how those stories ended.

People may want the list to still represent the fantasy, but that requires a suspension of disbelief and history has made us too aware to keep pretending.

The generation who ran companies from that old success model are either all grown up on their third acts or in JAIL. The extreme early success illusion is so played, and I’m not sure how many people are still buying it. That’s precisely why this current list feels so underwhelming compared to those prior—it’s because the mask has fallen.

On Being 30-Something and Still Figuring It Out

Society’s expectations of what we’re supposed to have accomplished by 30 have fundamentally shifted. Maybe that’s just what I tell myself to feel better as someone who’s settled into her thirties and still has a (small) ways to go.

By 35, you’ve presumably lived multiple lives. You’ve pivoted, burned things down, started over... this idea that your twenties are supposed to be your peak achievement years feels like a relic from a different economic reality—one where stability (somewhat) existed and linear career paths made sense.

It should go without saying that it’s never too late.

And this certainly isn’t to diminish what the young people on today’s Forbes list are doing—but the most recent iteration validates a new timeline, one where building an audience is simply enough to count.

Forbes is acknowledging that the definition of success has expanded beyond traditional entrepreneurship. But it also highlights something I think a lot of us are resisting: to be successful now, you must become discoverable, shareable, and watchable. We just have to get over it if we all wanna be rich.

The 30 Under 30 list isn’t worse than it used to be. I think it accurately reflects our broader society in the most truthful way.

Who’s in Miami? Drop me a line if you’re around!

Ta ta!

xox,

SF

Slutty Founder is a weekly newsletter about the culture of beauty and the business behind it.

Inside this week’s newsletter: My time at Axios Pro Rata’s BFD Event in NYC with notes from Emma Grede’s Panel; Lizzo’s Substack, L’Oréal wants to capitalize off your scars.

💥 CYBER WEEK SALE — get an annual subscription for just $60 (from $99/year) until Dec. 5th. 💥

Tis the season to re-watch Gossip Girl Season 1 Episode 9 🍁 !!! Let’s get into this week.

Inside Jobs

Head of Growth — Nopalera
Full-time | Senior / Director
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Communications Manager — Foundation
New York, NY (Hybrid) | Full-time | Mid
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Senior Manager/Director of Global E-Commerce — Topicals
Remote | Full-time | Senior / Director
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Fractional Brand Strategist (Manager-Level) — Mid-Luxury Home-Fragrance Brand
West Coast Only (LA preferred) | Part-time | Mid | $120–$130/hr
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Partnerships Lead — Fazit — Apply

Trade/Retail Marketing Associate — Fazit — Apply

• I went to Axios Pro Rata’s BFD Summit last week in New York mostly for a complimentary nosh and some vino and to see what Emma Grede was talking about. Despite being there fresh off of SKIMS’ $225M raise, she kept pivoting every question back to Good American, which I found bizarre.

1. “As you know it’s very expensive,” she noted of the raise which will fund the opening of one retail store per month. She did not go into details around where the retail stores plan to open.

2. She mentions SKIMS Beauty was a no-brainer since the brand already has such a specific aesthetic and unique POV on product. There weren’t any additional details on beauty apart from her excitement to establish it as a new vertical, which makes me feel like it may be more of an afterthought cash grab after all.

3. She kept swinging back to things we can find in her upcoming book which will be titled: Start With Yourself.

   Between this and dodging all of the SKIMS questions, I picked up that Emma’s next journey includes striking out on her own.

4. Despite reports of about 1 in 5 women on a GLP-1 for weight loss, Emma notes that Good American has not been affected by a shift in down-sizing. She attributes this to their tight focus “true inclusivity.” which they’ve had since inception.

5. She says most companies don’t have the end consumer in mind because their leaders aren’t the end consumer.

6. “What is a disaster anymore. We’re all talking and I don’t think it hurts,” she says on the attention economy. Sydney Sweeney’s Great Jeans campaign was referenced. Considering Emma’s proximity to the you know who’s, I think Emma would know best here.

7. Emma doesn’t make cutesy sandwiches for her kids. I felt seen by this despite not having any. She is a master of owning her time and hates the work life balance myth (which unlike her, Mark Cuban would never be criticized for — her words). To that point, she thinks if your business is flailing, the best people to hire are moms.

💥 CYBER WEEK SALE — get an annual subscription for just $60 (from $99/year) until Dec. 5th. 💥

• I read ’s debut Substack piece on our cultural obsession with weight and I was not expecting it to be such an emotive and eloquent read.

  Celebrities joining Substack don’t bother me. Are they charging people for subscriptions? I’m struggling to envision Charli XCX enabling Stripe.

• The latest grift are the people on Threads pretending that they have event spots to give away for Art Basel by asking you to message them for one. They are then redirecting you to a purchase link for “access” all of the events.

  A bait and switch gets more and more sophisticated every day!

• I’d like to ask Shay Mitchell in what ways she thinks skincare starts at birth.

• The scar care category is expected to reach $5B by 2030 and L’Oreal is smelling the money. With 80 million new scars formed every year in the US alone, who can blame them.

  My thing is….

  Remember when I said these large beauty conglomerates have their ears to the streets on what the indie founders are doing to establish market fit? I feel like this supports my suspicion.

  I instantly thought of Motivo Scar Care — the only medical-grade scar care system co-created by a patient and (world-renowned) plastic surgeon duo. I am also learning 1 in 3 people experience trauma and anxiety related to their scars, which makes sense because I can’t even tell you how irrationally angry I get when I think about the one I have from being attacked by an evil pitbull while walking my little angel.

  Motivo was founded after Jadis Montijo underwent top surgery and the scar recovery products he used irritated and inflamed his skin so severely that he ended up needing an additional corrective procedure just to undo the damage. Thus Motivo was born. This is such an OG, genuine need-to-market brand formation story. We just don’t get them like this anymore!

  I swear this isn’t a plug. I just love what this brand is doing so much and think it’s one of the most inventive that I’ve seen (and will see) in a very long time. I’m actually deeply considering getting onto their cap table.

  Motivo, by the way, is doing a site-wide sale of 25% off from this Thursday-Monday.

• Is Merit the first beauty brand to run a campaign featuring used products?

  I got slight PTSD thinking about when I would do my own product photography and would panic if there was so much as a teensy smear on a single letter on the back of the bottle. It almost seems silly how committed we were to perfection just a few short years ago.

  Dare I say this creative direction is absolutely brilliant. This is always the case with Merit though, frankly.

• Don’t forget to get your applications in for:

  1. Sephora Beauty Grant ($100,000) — Application closes November 28th, 2025

  2. Sonsie x Shopify Mindful Beauty Award ($100,000 cash award and resources to support and nurture female-founded beauty and wellness brands) — Application closes December 14, 2025

I’m open for a few sessions over the next couple of days while I let my greens soak. If you want to review application questions and feedback you can book me: HERE.

That’s it for today.

Will I be seeing any of you at Art Basel next week? Drop me a line!

xxo,

SF

Happy Friday!

I’m shamelessly accepting Art Basel invites from any of my gorgeous and well-connected readers. I’m down for any event short of the opening of an envelope, so if you have any golden tickets to spare, you know where to find me:

📧 hello@sluttyfounder.com.

Love youu xox

Inside Jobs (Week ending 11/14):

• Senior Manager, Influencer & Community Marketing — Nuuly (Philadelphia, PA · Full-time · Mid · Fashion)
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• Associate Director of Brand Marketing — Nuuly (Philadelphia, PA · Full-time · Senior/Director · Fashion)
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• Manager, Operations — Saie (Remote, US · Full-time · Mid · Beauty)
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• Associate Director, Brand Marketing — Reformation (Los Angeles, CA · Full-time · Senior/Director · Fashion · $100k–$120k)
  Apply here

• Brand and Product Marketing Manager — Rare Beauty (El Segundo, CA · Full-time · Mid · Beauty · $80k–$100k)
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• Senior Social Media Manager — Beauty/Skin Care Brand — The Grapevine Agency (Los Angeles, CA · Hybrid · Full-time · Senior/Director · Beauty · $150k–$180k)
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• UI/UX Designer — Anastasia Beverly Hills (Los Angeles, CA · Full-time · Senior/Director · Beauty · $100k–$120k)
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• Copywriter — Supplements Client — Creative People Inc. (Remote, US · Full-time · Senior/Director · Wellness · $100k–$120k)
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• Social Media Coordinator — Aspire with Emma Grede (Los Angeles, CA · Full-time · Entry-Level · Media)
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• Social Media Coordinator — Beauty Matter (New York, NY · Hybrid · Full-time · Entry-Level · Media)
  Apply here

📰 What Got My Attention This Week

• Are Black women in beauty under attack?

• Hourglass founder Carisa Janes launched her new brand Outside In, which will offer premium skincare-makeup hybrid products including a Silk Serum Foundation in 25 shades and a Floral Reserve Facial Oil. Hourglass has never missed with me, and I doubt this will be the exception.

  I didn’t realize Janes also acquired Nature of Things in 2023 and is relaunching it while continuing to oversee Hourglass (which she sold to Unilever in 2017). Some people just really have the bug, I feel!

  Plans for Outside In include a store in New York’s SoHo slated to open in spring 2026. This is like the third brand I’ve seen this week have plans to expand into brick-and-mortar, which makes me think about how the future of retail is quietly moving back offline. A few years ago this was such a taboo goal to have as a beauty brand.

Read more

Slutty Founder is a weekly newsletter about the culture of beauty and the business behind it.

Perhaps the biggest news this week was Diarrha N’diaye joining SKIMS just months after shuttering her beauty brand Ami Colé. The announcement wasn’t exactly met with unanimous applause, and I had some thoughts about that which are now live on Beauty Independent.

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A post shared via The Cut // Instagram: @thecut

ICYMI, Diarrha Ndiaye-Mbaye, the founder behind the now shuttered Ami Colé, has just been appointed as the new EVP of Beauty and Fragrance at SKIMS (beauty is something Kim has been teasing since shutting down her standalone beauty venture SKKN by Kim summer 2025).

If you listened to Diarrha’s interview on Emma Grede’s Aspire podcast back in September, it shouldn’t come as a shock that something big was up next for her.

Emma even asked her on their episode if she had her feelers out for a job post founderhood, to which Diarrha responded with a transparent yes. Personally, I could have foreseen an opportunity for Diarrha channeled through Emma one way or another.

Emma, who co-founded SKIMS and serves as COO clearly had a hand in orchestrating this next chapter where Diarrha will lead product development and brand strategy.

Slutty Founder is a weekly newsletter about the culture of beauty and the business behind it.

👉 Consider upgrading to unlock full access to Slutty Founder for $12/month or $99/year.

Unfortunately for Diarrha, this career move has ignited a contradiction: where was everyone when she needed our support <> wait! no, we can’t support this next move

With the discourse, most are disappointed that she’s aligning with Kim Kardashian, saying they can’t support a brand that’s long profited off the same culture Diarrha helped represent with integrity.

Others argue she sold out and that not all money is good money. Then of course, there’s Kim’s MAGA adjacency and friendship with Ivanka Trump.

Among some comments I read: “I wanted to see her win, but not like this.” “They’re using her.” “Supporting these culture vultures is sad.” “This is a con to get black women to spend as whites do on Rhode and Rare.”

Oh, brother.

The No-Win Situation

As someone who’s personally been dragged for filth by my own customers for partnering with the Kardashians (by way of POOSH), I feel for Diarrha — especially considering the uplift, support, and messages of regret she received when she announced her closure, only to face this level of scrutiny months later. There’s no business school lecture that prepares you for the kind of pushback you’ll receive after aligning yourself to the Kardashian ecosystem while Black. People rarely have the ability to see past the outrage and consider that such a move could be a lifeline or lead to a successful outcome on your terms.

As a founder friend pointed out in our evening voice notes on the situation, Diarrha is a smart woman who likely anticipated this reaction. She probably felt comfort in knowing that, at the end of the day, we’re not paying her bills — and that the public will never be fully satisfied.

I mean what were her alternatives? Let’s consider some:

• Diarrha declines the role » SKIMS has zero Black women at the executive level, and we complain about the lack of diversity.

• We ask why Emma/SKIMS didn’t invest instead » we judge her for taking the investment from Kim and selling out.

• Diarrha waits for a more “authentic” opportunity » we question why she didn’t strike while she was hot and her visibility was high. She potentially burns a bridge with Emma.

• She takes the role » we say she is using the culture to enrich someone else (don’t Black women do this in most spaces we take up anyway? Lol).

Like can we get a damn grip? There’s no winning and Diarrha has to put herself first, Lucious.

And I say this as one of the few people who came down pretty hard on her and the details surrounding her closure!

Now, sisters, some of what I’m going to say in this paragraph below is house business (IYKYK) so I’m going to walk with you gently as I heed you on this.

It is completely fair to not want to shop or support a brand you don’t align with.

The thing is, nobody is asking you to. Since when do new executive appointments require you to shop a brand you don’t support? People are conflating SKIMS appointing a Black executive with some implicit demand to engage with the brand—and honestly, as someone who indeed thinks everything is that deep—idk about this one.

No offense, but I doubt SKIMS is checking for us like that. They already have their valuation. They’ll survive without our attention, and we’ll survive by not giving it to them. Personally I’d like to see less talking and more dust paying if we’re so bothered.

After all, outrage just fuels more attention. Silence empties pockets.

(One of the reasons I didn’t even waste my time reporting on those pubic hair thongs.)

Don’t we get it by now?

Some things are just not worth getting worked up about. How many more essays do I have to write about us being more delicate with our energy?!

I don’t think it’s fair that Diarrha is being positioned as an inherent victim that can’t see where team SKIMS is pulling the strings. Why are they at the top of this scenario while she’s at the bottom? I think we should assume better of her for now.

Lastly, something’s not sitting right with me about Diarrha absorbing the anger and vitriol while Kim reaps the benefits of the Black outrage she so expertly feeds off.

Stop!

The Part No One’s Talking About

While everyone was arguing morality and feeling conflicted, the money-hungry bitch in me was running up the math.

In addition to what is likely a handsome mid-6 figure salary, Diarrha is walking into the kind of executive role that typically comes with stock options and equity compensation at a $4B company that’s gearing up to go public.

Do you understand how rich that exit would make her?

People outside the founder and startup world underestimate what it means to work for a company pre-IPO, especially at the executive level. When a company goes public, senior execs often have equity or stock options that turn into life-changing payouts. Even a small fraction of equity in a multi-billion-dollar brand can translate to millions for one employee. It’s a strategy tech and finance bros have been using for decades—get in early and hang on long enough for the exit to take care of you.

The timing of her hire is basically a gift from God. SKIMS has already done the hard part with years of scaling and building proof. Diarrha gets to walk on right before what we can assume will be an inevitable IPO.

So while people are online debating, Diarrha is positioning herself for the kind of financial security that most will NEVER reach — even as founders of successful companies.

Mixed Feelings

Part of the reason Ami Colé shut down is because running a business without infinite capital is BRUTAL.

Now, she gets to do the same work (developing products, shaping teams, leading innovation) but with unlimited resources and none of the founder burnout — this is any visionary’s dream (granted, minus the ego stroke of doing it for your own brand).

Also, we can’t forget about her background. Prior to starting Ami Colé, she’s done similar work at prestige beauty brands like Glossier and L’Oreal. If there’s anyone suited for this new leg of SKIMS it’s her, and I’m glad to see she’s managed to land a role in an industry that shuts so many brilliantly overqualified Black women out of corporate.

Here’s where I have mixed feelings.

As that beauty founder friend of mine mentioned above said: “She’s not good enough for you to write a check for, but she’s good enough to run your thing?”

Real.

I echoed that those were my immediate thoughts with the announcement as I thought back to Diarrha’s interview with Emma — early in the episode, they glossed over the fact that Emma didn’t write her a check when she was building Ami Colé —an answer I wanted satisfied 30 seconds into my pressing play.

Of course, everyone’s always so supportive until it’s time to write your black ass a check. Ha.

The way I could name drop so many founders who’ve built respectable brands (that we know), who’ve struggled to raise institutional capital but have had every top beauty brand and FAANG company in their inbox asking them to help build their thing?

This is the piece of the Diarrha SKIMS news that I did find a teensy bit triggering, especially as an ex-founder and a friend to so many others.

Diarrha’s Next Move Says More About Us Than It Does About Her

I’ll be the one to say that we only want people to win in ways that make us feel good.

I don’t think Diarrha owes us a “pure” path that makes us comfortable.

Let me rip the bandaid by saying that the big feelings we’re having around her EVP appointment are displaced.

I literally would not be mad if everyone just let out a scream and said “I hate Kim Kardashian!” How many ways do we have to contort logic before we conclude that’s really what it’s about? That’s what it’s about and it’s actually okay. It’s hard to watch someone we championed align with the opps, even more so in this climate.

I’m alright with feelings, even when I do find them a bit hypocritical.

I meannnn, look. Is Kim likely morally compromised and a little too closely adjacent to the MAGA-tech-oligarch-billionaire pipeline? Lol, duh. They all are. It’s everywhere. Even down to the very platform I’m using to send this newsletter.

Mama, let’s research.

Bernard Arnault literally had dinner with Trump while owning Sephora by way of LVMH. But I bet half the people saying they’ll boycott SKIMS will be first in line for their upcoming (not really a sale) sale.

Are we equally as uncomfortable with the thousands of people who work for Meta to scrape together their New York City rent every month as we are Diarrha working for SKIMS to support herself and her family?

A piece of me selfishly and unrealistically wishes our collective outrage were a bit more thorough.

I don’t know that I’m particularly fond of Kim either, but it doesn’t cloud my ability to see Diarrha’s move for what it is: a calculated bet on herself, her expertise, and her financial future.

My mouth salivates at the thought of that pre-IPO situation for her, man. I truly can’t get over it.

Honestly? Good for her.

Image // Netflix

Spoilers ahead!!!

If Victoria Beckham hadn’t told me her brand was failing, I’d have never known it was failing. So how does one save a luxury label that’s bleeding out without destroying the aspiration that made it valuable in the first place?

You produce a Netflix series, of course!

I didn’t know what to expect when I pressed play—I clicked out of affinity for my favorite Spice Girl, assuming it would be some kind of biographical reflection, perhaps, or maybe a fresh angle on her love story that I could live vicariously through. Lol please, not even.

Set against the backdrop of prepping for her potentially disastrous Spring ’25 Paris Fashion Week show, the three-part series traces her evolution from shy and image conscious Essex girl to global pop star, to the most photographed WAG in Britain, to creative director of her own fashion empire. But the real tension lies between her fight for fashion industry acceptance and the financial turmoil that nearly costs her her business.

While I didn’t recognize the doc to be what The Daily Beast called a “self congratulatory puff piece,” I did clock it as a part of a long-game calculated brand repositioning strategy, and a deliberate effort to reassert control over her narrative.

‘Kill The WAG‘

I will say that I’ve held a strong regard for Victoria Beckham, both in her fashion and beauty lines.

To me, she’s long since moved past her WAG persona and cheap tabloid caricature. And most admirably has taken on an identity separate from her husband (so iconic of her to never have been photographed at a game in that man’s jersey 😭).

Before we had Georgina, Victoria did WAG the best you can do it.

The hair, the tan, the boobs, the Birkin—all things I still reference on my Miami trips. What I learned was that she leaned so hard into the archetype that it became satire and an eventual detriment to her desire for career evolution beyond that.

In the doc, she admits she was massively struggling to find herself after the pop-era ended, desperate to build something that was hers. Fashion—always her outlet—became the next logical stage.

Images: Giovanni Giannoni/WWD; Victoria Beckham Spring 2025 RTW

Victoria Beckham launched in 2008 with a collection of luxury dresses and funding from her husband, which I think was her first mistake. There’s no easier way to raise money and leverage OPM than by being a public figure. They may have even let her have a say. I said to myself this couple is too sweet, hardworking and kind!

Instead of tapping institutional money early, she built an independent luxury label the hard way: respectably and expensively.

Under the tutelage of French designer Roland Mouret, who appears in the doc, she ‘Kills the WAG’ by stripping down the hyper-glam persona for an image that was more pared-back and restrained. Mouret is credited with helping her define her audience of “women that want to be like her,” which he presents as revelatory, although it isn’t, really.

While the brand gained credibility in the years to follow, it hit a familiar wall all self-funded founders know all too well—when perception outpaces profitability. You know the feeling: looks so good until you undress it.

Oh, the imposter syndrome this can invoke.

It was at this point in the docuseries is where my empathy as a builder and a creative kicked in deeply. I saw a bit of myself in Victoria, which I’m certain the series aimed to trigger.

Panic and Redemption

As Victoria Beckham became more acclaimed, the demands of the brand grew and David kept reinvesting more cash. Except they were millions of pounds in the red and never turned a profit. It was just getting “worse, and worse, and worse,” Victoria says and in David’s words, there was “no way of her business surviving.”

She earnestly admits that at one point the brand was putting out so much “waste” through the excessive overuse of crème de la crème materials—at one point using as many as 15 different linings for the insides of their outerwear. We later learn of expenses including $70,000 a year on flowers and another $15,000 a year for someone to water them.

We don’t learn of the exact amount David invested over time, but at some point a newspaper clipping flashes across the screen citing losses of £38 million. As the on screen tension on the brand continued I found myself balling my fists in panic, and saying: “Hello! Why not bring on outside investors!”

The brand does end up securing a £30M investment from David Belhassen’s PE firm Neo Investment Partners in 2017— a deal he admits on camera he nearly walked away from because the books were so bad—until he took his wife to dinner and she so happened to be wearing a Victoria Beckham dress. How conveniently cinematic. I’m not sure if this serendipitous twist was scripted or not, but it was a twist of fate that inspired him to save the company.

Victoria, eager to please swore through tears to ‘never let him down.’

This isn’t just a touching personal story. It’s a coordinated and opportune arrangement to inject the Victoria Beckham brand deeper into public consciousness.

I can’t help but think it was that same stakeholder involvement that led to this docuseries — and what better timing than now, while leveraging David Beckham’s Emmy-nominated series Beckham, also released on Netflix in late 2023.

Image // Netflix

Commodifying Vulnerability

Victoria Beckham is hard on herself. She is at times, overly self-aware—even as she reflects on things in hindsight. She oscillates a lot between the words “control” and “if I’m being honest,” and says that we aren’t wrong to have thought of her as a miserable cow who didn’t smile.

She reflects on being extremely self-conscious, which we learn is the reason she never smiled in photos. What we romanticize as her iconic WAG era, she reveals as “attention-seeking” due to a frustrating lack of purpose and creative fulfillment.

She is as ambitious as she is deeply concerned with being liked and understood—qualities that make her relatable and her reinvention likely, albeit emotionally exhausting.

Every confession (she kind of opens up about her eating disorder) and glimpse into the past deliberately recalibrates how we see her—as a woman misunderstood and pushed towards self-hatred by the pressures of her fame while trying to thrive outside of her husband’s shadow.

At one point in episode one, a clip plays of a female reporter saying “he’s quite talented at what he does, and she just wears a lot of clothes.” Then follows a clip from a male reporter saying she “steals the occasion” from her husband and proceeds to call her “a common little bitch.”

These are the mechanics for cashing out on vulnerability. Things that would never fly in today’s social climate make for great storytelling and emotional investment.

It’s at this point you feel you really have to root for her.

The Repositioning: The Victoria Beckham Playbook

When you zoom out, it’s clear that this docuseries is a part of a long-game brand and revenue strategy, alchemized through the lens of a reclaimed narrative.

So what other levers are at work to reposition and revitalize Victoria Beckham?

Manufactured Empathy

You could literally make a drinking game out of how many times Victoria refers to herself with the word “control.” It’s mirrored by how often those around her describe the former version of her in the same way.

Read more

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Some Housekeeping

It’s my favorite time of year in beauty!! When a lot of free money starts rolling around 💰👀

Here are some upcoming deadlines for October with links inside the Slutty Founder Grant Database (free download).

Sephora Accelerate will roll around soon—here for you when that day comes…

It is Collab CITY on my social feeds!

There’s something happening where brands seem to need each other more than they used to. Churning things out and leveraging their way to the top through constant collaboration and the sheer volume of “moments” has become critical to avoiding Chapter 11, have them tell it.

To me this all of this movement suggests economic survival brought on by the attention economy more than it does creative exercise. These brands can’t possibly think that consumers expect constant newness more than we actually do.

In a world where the success of a marketing campaign has become the marketing itself, I will say, this has led to some really insightful collaboration as of late.

My Latest

• Rhode’s Peptide Eye Patches are a little late and no one’s saying it. I don’t understand how a brand that has found a way to merchify every little thing has taken so long to produce such an economically feasible SKU. Topicals has been to the club, the Caribbean, and back in bed by now. Cute entry point to the Rhode brand, but just late.

• Speaking of Rhode, I’ve learned our guy Ron Robinson is also the formulator behind Yes Day, the teen brand founded by 13-year old Coco Granderson and supported by her mom Danielle. Covering tween brands was not on my 2025 bingo card. At least we know the formulation is going to be good.

  Not that I’m a t(w)een, but I actually think this brand is positioned more strongly than Sincerely Your’s, although the funding and distribution contrast will guarantee a different kind of success picture.

• Crown Affair is partnering with Hill House. Chic, although we don’t yet know what’s inside the bags. It arrives Oct. 9th.

• I love this Iconic Never Gets Old campaign from Refy, but I almost wish they found a way to spotlight the age thing without calling it out. If we’re gonna normalize it, normalize it. You know? I can’t wait until beauty is there entirely.

• The Tower28 x Poppi Cranberry Fizz campaign may take the cake for earliest holiday push. It was actually out by mid-September.

  Christmas in July will become a normalized marketing ploy in a few short years, mark my words.

• ChatGPT is becoming shoppable which means they’re more desperate than ever to justify their $500B valuation. This feature will integrate with Etsy sellers and merchants like Glossier, SKIMS and Vuori. I mean, I guess if there’s capability to find me a good Etsy witch I could be curious. Why was I almost enticed to purchase a permanent money spell the other day until I realized at checkout that the girl works with demons.

  Mark more of my words — they’ll be rolling out ads in a minute. Brand founders will become stressed trying to keep up with yet another marketing channel, the Plus features will become Standard, and there will be a new payment tier on top of that just for you to avoid them.

• Not me getting the Merit x Brandon Maxwell Signature Bag collab mixed up with Brandon Blackwood?! Girl! 😭. I’m thinking Merit really has their ear to the streets! I was a little impressed! Sigh. The collab I wish it was, sadly, was just a misread. Look at me out here just creating my own reality.

• Saie partnered with Chloe this fashion week. Our clean girl has gone couture.

• In today’s episode of: brands confused about what they should sell to survive, Coperni is making “probiotic athleisure” clothing with their new C+ line.

  Imagine pitching a VC with this concept and your friends asking you about how it went.

• The Gap x Sandy Liang promo cannot be any better. Gap has also announced that they too, are launching their own creator affiliate platform.

• Still not sold on the Alo bag and not even Rosie HW can influence me to think better of it. Sorrows, prayers.

  This may be too niche, but this is also how I’m learning Rose Inc. is back in business. It was stealthily one of my favorite skinnified makeup brands until their venture partner went bankrupt in 2023 and their products were snatched out of Sephora with no heed! The brand was auctioned off to a Hong-Kong based asset management firm and she has no affiliation with the brand despite its name-stay. I do love her Youtube channel I wish she’d post more.

That’s all for today, Substack is warning me that my post is too long for email.

Ta-ta!

xox,

SF

Slutty Founder is a weekly newsletter about the culture of beauty and the business behind it.

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My sister, in a recent and misplaced spat of rage, called me a narcissist—an accusation that I found quite flattering. Truthfully, it’s one of the nicer things she’s ever said about me.

If I’m honest with myself and you, I didn’t examine the cost of my self-effacement until several years deep into my first business after mistaking it for a natural and mostly harmless state of being. I’m someone who could have long benefitted from cultivating more self-important characteristics, but instead operated from the wounded place of shrinking myself.

Specifically, being someone who needed or relied on people didn’t align with the identity I had carefully constructed for myself, and it certainly wasn’t something I thought of as leverage.

When I started my beauty brand, I positioned myself as scrappy and resourceful, and I found it validating when others reflected this back to me. This external validation became one of the only metrics by which I could measure my success. The only KPI I tracked at that point was how often people called me scrappy. I had successfully scaled a $200 investment to a 6-figure business in just a few short years, with a 281% revenue growth rate within a matter of months—although I was unreasonably disappointed I hadn’t gotten it to 7. Objectively outstanding, sure, but I don’t think I was particularly all that impressed with myself.

Being humble and fiercely independent became an inadvertent strategy. My fear of reliance and appearing self-important subconsciously led me to perform the founder act solo for much of my career. It was just easier to navigate success in the shadows. Besides, how could anyone possibly share the level of willpower that always got me from A to B?

Self-created breakthroughs have always felt like the most natural pathway to any goal.

As a freshman, when I hated the miserable little college I attended in the middle of bumfuck Pennsylvania and decided I wanted to transfer, I simply….transferred. I set my sights on New York City, with no parental involvement until I sprung on my mom that “I was moving to New York in a week, by the way,” and asked if she could drive me. She dropped me off and I took shelter in my self-assigned housing. A month later I got a job so I could afford Thai with my NYU friends at Cafetesia.

This allergy to being unburdened didn’t just develop at 19, of course. Perhaps I inherited it in-vitro as the eldest daughter.

I could always depend on myself as the most reliable and judgement-free option.

Besides, if anyone would have dared try to hold my hand along the way, I would have genuinely wondered what they were getting out of it.

Baby Narcs

In orchestra I was second chair to *Stephanie, despite being perfectly capable of first. In dance I was second to *Demi who had tinier feet and a seemingly more flexible split, while I settled into showcasing my less impressive floor straddle.

I was the understudy to *Amelia as Clementine in the 6th grade play of My Darling Clementine—though now that I think about it in hindsight, that may have actually been due to r.…nevermind.

These girls put on display that they were proud to shine, and their confidence carried a contagion. Everyone, even me, began to think of them as important and special. But I couldn’t imagine this level of attention for myself. It just seemed unnecessary anyway.

The baby narcs I came second to all shared a common thread. They simply decided the room was theirs and made everyone else deal with it. They didn’t seem to care about how much people talked behind their backs about whether or not they were worthy of the thing. They believed they deserved help, hands, and attention. After all, the best baby narcissists don’t see it wrong to put themselves at the center.

Often, I didn’t feel comfortable letting my audience know how good I was at, frankly, everything worth being good at. In the off moments of appearing full of myself, it never really fared well. ‘I thought I was better than everybody,’ you know?

Instead, I deepened my resistance to being the best. Besides, what if people started to expect the best from me all the time?

I’m afraid if I hadn’t started a business I would have gone through life unaware of this insidious and useless pattern.

I had a call with the iconic Kirsten Green at Forerunner Ventures once, and despite how nervous I tend to be on calls, we really kind of hit it off. She seemed genuinely impressed with what I was building and placed an order mid-chat. If it were performative, it went over my head.

I was “too early” for her to end up investing, and at this time I was doing everything end to end—down to the formulas—which looking back, I think was really none of her business. After I bled out to Kirsten, she tenderly shot back with the most obvious observation imaginable: “Of course, look at all that you’re doing! You’re by yourself!”

It tickles me that I hadn’t even considered this, as glaring as the obstacle was. I was more surprised she had seemed sympathetic towards the thought of me doing everything. It wasn’t often at that time, that I felt that people felt for me.

I’d expected our conversation to unlock some profound truth, perhaps about my incompetence as a businessperson, or the blind spots in my customer journey sequence, but what she reflected back was that the only thing separating me from the next stage was the fact that I refused to grant anyone the permission to worship me.

Engines and Minions

Founder-led brands are thriving because they offer one of the few socially acceptable frameworks for women to put their narcissistic traits on display. The figure of female founder operates as a character for audiences to project onto. After all, society only tolerates women taking up that much space when it’s in service to something external, like a child or a brand.

So if a female leader is increasingly filling your timeline, it isn’t the result of some rare stroke of luck or a sudden swell of consumer demand. No matter how unassuming she is or above it she pretends to be—trust and believe that her omnipresence is deliberate; a byproduct of her own self-regard.

It’s why I roll my eyes when public figures act as though fame is an inconvenience, when in reality it has to be relentlessly and intentionally cultivated.

None of it is miraculous nor accidental. Not even the Becca Bloom phenomenon.

When you get defeated seeing celebrities, or even your most hated influencers, you have to put into perspective just how many people are dedicated to making that one singular person successful. I don’t think the average human can even contextualize just how much engineering goes into making the talent look effortless. Directing that machine requires godlike conviction and a comfort of power. Do you think the people surrounded by entire ecosystems of handlers are waving them off like, “No, shoo, relax, I’m just like you?” Absolutely the hell not.

When I worked at EMI Music, we had an entire team dedicated solely to Katy Perry. Another team just for Gorillaz, and so on and so forth. And that’s before you even count their own external teams outside of the label.

Did I think Katy felt bad that there was some unpaid emaciated intern in frayed Nine West boots skipping lunch to do the invoicing for the $1000+ manicure she had at the Grammys?

Meanwhile, I’d feel awful if I didn’t need one of my girls for a production day because, what if it caused them to miss a bill or something?

Reluctant Tyranny

As I journeyed deeper into beauty business world, the discrepancies between me and the most successful founders I knew became even more obvious.

I learned that people saw The Established as a white-girl VC brand—both from the way they reacted when I appeared on the other end of a Zoom screen and from what someone once told me directly on a call. I was not flattered by this. Not for the reason you may assume, but because it exposed just how much I was still doing myself. It stopped being cute. Like it gets to a point!

It was the shame of still making my own products that finally pushed me to hire my first production assistants.

Before that, I was afraid of confronting how much real help would demand of me. Afraid someone would gladly work for pennies and “experience,” and I’d end up owing them a future I couldn’t guarantee. I felt premature guilt that I might wake up one day and decide I’d rather prioritize marrying rich, and be stuck figuring out how to reimburse a team for the time they wasted on my indecision and career-commitment issues.

My hard-won lesson is this: while you can create miracles solo, you can’t scale miracles. Miracles are one-person stunts. Even the most mediocre engine of minions will get you further along in comparison.

The best leaders already know this.

They know they’re at the helm, and they don’t apologize for the arrangement. They simply see it as natural. They see themselves as the gravitational center and embody a belief system that says above everything and everybody else, they deserve to be seen.

The most successful and most visible receive support the way a toddler receives a juicebox. Of course you’re handing me this. Why the hell wouldn’t you?

Anyways, I’m done mistaking fear for virtue. The next time someone offers to hold my hand, I’m taking it. And I’m assuming they know exactly how lucky they are!

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