How do you build a beauty brand today?

November 2023

I well up as I leave the north London salon. Not in a cinematic, cathartic way. No. These are hot, pissed-off tears. My braids look exquisite, but the experience? Torture. My stylist juggled personal calls and snack breaks while I sat hostage for hours in the uncomfortable chair and bleak environment. This isn’t unusual. Every Black woman I know carries an arsenal of salon horror stories. And yet, we return. Not because it’s cheap – it isn’t; Black women spend six times more on their hair than white women – but because great alternatives are so few. I decide to draw a line under it. For years I have nursed the idea of launching Goodifferent, a global elevated hair brand, salons and products, for Afro-heritage hair. Now I’m going to make it a reality.

December 2023

Enter spreadsheets and strategy decks. Finally my business degree is having its moment in the sun. Competitive analysis? A dream. SWOT analysis? Child’s play. Balance sheets? My nemesis. I call in help: a fellow beauty founder introduces me to her financial adviser. Together, we begin to translate my vision into viability.

January 2024

At 7pm one Tuesday I type three audacious lines to Sarah Coonan, the managing director at Liberty. No deck, no glossy brand narrative, just the idea: an Afro-heritage hair salon that doesn’t look like a salon but a living room, one that has a mini library and great art, and good music curated by my DJ and producer friends. Almost immediately, Coonan replies: Yes. I’m stunned.

February 2024

Liberty’s group buying and merchandising director Lydia King shows me three sites. One is divine but doll’s-house-small. Another is oak-beamed, with plumbing nightmares only a Grade II*-listed building could deliver. The third is the personal-shopping suite, bathed in light, its windows overlooking Carnaby Street. Goosebumps. Two days later, it’s ours. Placing Afro-heritage hair – long ignored in the mainstream – inside one of the most storied retail spaces in the world.

£1mn is roughly what I’ll need to launch the salon and product line. Terrifying

Over endless cups of tea, I trawl through the admin: incorporation, bank account, trademarks, spreadsheets… £1mn is roughly what I’ll need to launch the salon and product line. Terrifying. I’m well aware that only 0.02 per cent of VC funding goes to Black women. But the global Black hair market is worth over $10bn; and Black women spend exponentially more on hair than their caucasian counterparts across Europe, the US, Africa, Brazil and Afro-Latino communities – and the numbers are rising. Even if one ignores the ethics of representation, the sheer commercial opportunity is undeniable. But where to begin with investors?

Celebrity brands usually elicit eye-rolls, but Beyoncé’s haircare line, Cécred, has arrived and the beauty industry has collectively lost its mind. Backed by trichologist Dr Kari Williams, it is heavy on science and credibility. As a beauty editor, I tried it early. Verdict: excellent. Perhaps we could retail it in the salon?

Goodifferent is about reclaiming the language weaponised to divide us (“good hair”) and to diminish us (“different”). But how do we show up in the world? I collate a moodboard: a N.E.R.D. album cover, a portrait of Toni Morrison, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s and Danielle Mckinney’s paintings, Nadine Ijewere’s and James Barnor’s photography, Paint & Paper Library colour swatches, lines from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah… But I still need a logo. Pacific, the New York design studio that works with art institutions such as The Met, understands the assignment. And then delivers an estimate. My jaw hits the floor.

March 2024

How does one become a “proper” founder? I love the entrepreneurial podcast How I Built This and re-read Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success, three times. Then I call Bobbi Brown, the make-up artist who sold her eponymous brand to Estée Lauder, and is now turning her second, Jones Road, into a juggernaut. I’ve interviewed her many times and we have since developed something of a friendship. Bobbi doesn’t usually invest, but she puts in a token sum and offers the simplest advice: “Don’t be afraid to ask.” Next stop: LinkedIn, to see who, aside from me and my savings, might actually bankroll Goodifferent.

Six of my hair heroes

Cécred The Protection Collection Detangling Spray

“I love the Moisture Sealing Lotion and Restoring Hair & Edge Drops. But the new Protection Collection, specifically for braids and weaves, is also impressive and much-needed.” £26, cecred.com

Charlotte Mensah Manketti Oil Salt Scrub

“Most scalp exfoliators I’ve tried are either too harsh or overly grainy. This amazing iteration hits all the right spots.” £60, spacenk.com

Briogeo Curl Charisma Hydrating Shampoo

“For me, the acid test of a decent hair brand is the quality of its shampoos and conditioners. This shampoo is particularly wonderful as it immediately infuses curls with hydration.” £24, lookfantastic.com

Davines OI All in One Milk

“This leave-in spray treatment is incredible and smells amazing.” £18, sephora.com

Melanin Haircare Plumping Deep Conditioner

“It’s worth trying this deep-conditioning hair mask – particularly for natural hair types – in a steam treatment. The softening, moisturising results are sublime.” £38, spacenk.com

The Steam Bar The Scalp Serum

“Overloading the scalp with product is counter-productive. But this light, well-formulated serum nurtures the health of the scalp beautifully.” £44, The Steam Bar

April 2024

The language of raising funds is giving me vertigo. Despite my accounting degree, terms including “cap table”, “pre-seed” and “SEIS” might as well be in Aramaic. I am quickly learning “female friendly” funders aren’t all that friendly, that angels can actually be quite demonic, and that you’re expected to endure endless meetings with VCs who have zero intention of writing a cheque. “Come back in a few years,” they say.

And then, a miracle. While in New York for Frieze, my brilliant friend Ebele Okobi, chair of the development board of Nigeria’s Museum of West African Art, now Goodifferent’s strategic advisor, calls: “Can you talk? I’ve got someone who wants to invest 100K.” Elation. Terror. I am now custodian of someone else’s money.

Mid-May 2024

First meeting with our product development lab. So many lines for Black hair lean on the same tired tropes and ingredients. Meanwhile, haircare for caucasian hair has long enjoyed the fruits of biotech, sophisticated active ingredients and advanced textures. At the very least I want parity. The all-female team of scientists shares my vision. We are initially developing five SKUs [stock keeping units] that will form the building blocks of any washday routine. It will take 18 months, minimum. But this could be seismic.

June 2024

My first investor, Jeanine Henry, an ex-Meta senior director and now my COO, believed in my vision even before seeing a single number. Others are demanding a full five-year financial plan: sales, P&Ls, cash flows, balance sheets. How many people will walk through the salon doors? How many treatments per week will cover costs? How many product upsells keep things profitable? Eventually, I realise most numbers are guesswork and gut instinct. Still, I need help. A friend introduces me to a numbers whizz, Banasa Williams, who has agreed to be CCO. With Ebele, we are now a quartet of Black women leading Goodifferent!

Mid-June 2024

Another bad hair experience. But some good news – Elizabeth Karp-Evans and Adam Turnbull of Pacific have generously reworked their prices. We’re in business.

July 2024

Meet House of Black by Blacksheep, a design collective that worked on Hermès’s Sloane Street store, the interior design team of which is run by Toni Black, who (divine alignment!) used to be a hairstylist. I am now finalising Liberty contracts, and looking at brands to use and retail in the salon. How much shampoo will we need per day?

August 2024

Momentum has stalled. Liberty’s building status means there’s a plethora of paperwork to get through before work can start. Meanwhile, investors continue to dangle “great idea, let’s talk more” while contributing nothing. My inbox is full; my bank account is not. I head to Arles and end up at the Haribo Museum (don’t ask). It was the reset I needed. I return to London and begin the search for great hairstylists.

December 2024 – January 2025

December is a blur. Editorial work in LA, Paris, Johannesburg, Miami. Proofing my short-story collection. Fielding design, PR and costs calls. By Christmas, my body says: enough. Weeks later, House of Black unveils the design: less salon, more fabulous living room. It buoys me.

February 2025

I try to create my own investment deck. Futile. An LA investor offers a solution: he knows “a guy”. Apparently he is the best in the business. The catch? $15,000. For a PowerPoint. I am obviously in the wrong job.

March 2025

Despite eye-watering invoices, we confirm a construction company. With no new investment, I begin to wonder what I’m doing wrong. At a dinner, a fellow guest casually mentions she’s raised £250K in a weekend for her upcoming beauty brand. I want to cry.

April 2025

A writer connects me to Zena Bruges, an investment-deck whisperer. Turns out she’s a sharp, incisive, brilliant woman. Within an hour she’s offered numerous insights, including the subtle language shifts required to connect with the finance bros. She will have a deck to me in a fortnight.

May 2025

Hailey Bieber’s Rhode sells to e.l.f. Beauty for a rumoured $1bn. My beauty-insider WhatsApp groups implode. The brand only launched three years ago and has just 10 SKUs. How will this affect the brand long-term? Investors typically want quick returns and the fallout often includes accelerated product rollouts, compromised formulas, crazy scaling and diluted DNA. The very thing that makes a brand resonate can be the thing they strangle. Still, it gets me thinking: what would my exit strategy be? Much as I love beauty, I don’t intend to work forever. The deck arrives. It is delicious.

July 2025

Ami Colé, the clean-beauty brand founded by Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye, is shutting after just four years. They had raised more than $3mn, secured community love and retail presence in more than 600 Sephora stores . . . and yet it folded. This feels so personal. And depressing. Black founders often face a double-bind, forced to grow at a crazy pace but without the supporting capital or infrastructure more easily available to their caucasian counterparts. The situation has been exacerbated by a post-Trump world where investors are pedalling back on their inclusivity commitments. Meanwhile, my construction costs keep ballooning. I could buy a flat in Zone 3 with that money. I cut ties. Thanks to Liberty, I find a new contractor.

September 2025

We are due to open the salon in just over a month. Our design – chic but playful, with lots of books that people can buy, alongside hair products and art – requires complex bespoke woodwork so that it can transform into a private dining space for events. It’s tricky, as is pulling a team together. Liberty is open seven days a week, for up to 10 hours a day. We have five chairs, and aim to see roughly 20 people a day. Prices will start from £125 for cuts, colour, weaves, braids, silk presses and treatments – we need a lot of people. I’m finalising the marketing strategy (I’m obsessing over Liquid Death CEO Mike Cessario’s MasterClass); signing off brand collaborations and debating throwing an opening party. I’m particularly excited about hosting exhibitions with displays changing every six to eight weeks overseen by guest curators; I’ve lined up Alayo Akinkugbe, author of Reframing Blackness, to curate the first. But making lots of decisions quickly means my insomnia is now at award-winning levels.

And then. I receive a WhatsApp from a friend: “I’m about to introduce you to that incredible angel investor I told you about. She wants to invest…”