One of the hardest things I've ever had to do: My brand has so much potential, I got 3 Dragons in the Den, but I'm walking away, and this is why

Here's my story and why I need your help

I can’t believe that five months after watching myself on Dragons’ Den I’m having to sell the business. There’s been so many wins - Emma Corrin loving Period Faace in Vogue one of my personal highlights. That and the 13 awards, 50+ retailer launches, dozens of countries entered, thousands of glowing press articles in every dreamy title imaginable (This Morning for International Women’s Day another favourite), influencers, make-up artists, skin experts and key opinion leaders whose words I hang off loving the products, successfully crowdfunding and bringing awareness to the lack of female funding, raising hundreds of thousands of pounds of investment, being on TV with QVC and Dragons’ Den, and customers consistently rating the formulas as ‘excellent’. But nothing was ever enough.

I’m sick of the smoke and mirrors of the industry I’ve loved for 20 years. Money talks. It sounds like a bitter cop-out, but honestly, it’s not. I can’t even fathom the success we’ve achieved with Faace. It’s bonkers how much everyone loves the brand (shout out to my husband Dan for creating what I think is exceptional branding. I mean Sara Davies gave it a “solid 9.5 out of 10” and even Deborah Meaden, Steven Bartlett, and Peter Jones were big fans). Creating a one-off, feministic, gorgeous, Period Faace mask, for when you’re on your bloody period (sorry I couldn’t resist) for goodness’ sake, partnering with amazing organisations like The Menopause Charity and Hey Girls to help fight period poverty. What more could we have done?!

I’m so exasperated with the whole thing if I am being honest. There isn’t any justice in how what we’ve built hasn’t been successful enough. It feels very unfair.

Why has it been tough? Here are some facts.

The competition is fierce

It’s estimated that in 2023, around 15K new beauty products were introduced to the market globally (source: McKinsey). And, according to The British Beauty Council ‘in the UK, the beauty industry is experiencing significant growth, with over 500 beauty brands being launched each year since 2014’. That’s 2.5K new brands since we launched Faace (I think it could actually be even more).

A lot of businesses don’t make it

‘The beauty industry in the UK sees a significant number of brand closures each year, influenced by various economic challenges and market dynamics. In recent years, several notable beauty brands have shut down due to factors like the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, and supply chain issues. While exact statistics on the number of beauty brands closing annually are not consistently tracked, the general retail environment provides some context. In 2023, there were approximately 14,081 closures of various retail shops and outlets across the UK, which includes multiple sectors beyond beauty’ (source: PWC).

You need serious funding

Often, leading, global brands don’t actually make a profit and face financial challenges in their first few years of business (Glossier, Fenty Beauty, Urban Decay, Tatcha, Anastasia Beverly Hills to name a few).

So, okay, they grow year on year and the investments do pay off, (I had a chat with a VC fund recently who admitted to me that they want to see returns of 250 million and significant growth month-on-month over short periods of time to get there… jeez that pressure… can you imagine?!). But they need the funds to achieve this first. I know that doesn’t mean it always works, I have it on good authority that a well-known brand recently had to pivot on its new launch into market, despite having a multi-million launch budget, as what they set out to do just wasn’t working.

You only have to browse LinkedIn each day to see this pop-up, and that activation, from brands (which by the way cost in their tens if not hundreds of thousands), that people are executing, without a direct return on investment to grow their businesses.

I know of just one brand - literally one in the thousands I have encountered over my career - which has actually reached multi-millions in turnover through pure organic means. Every other has been a carefully constructed route laden with paid partnerships and big budget spend.

We did too much too soon

It wasn’t just because we weren’t caked. In the words of The Specials, we did too much, much too young. I said ‘yes’ to every opportunity that came our way. For example, I know how hard it is to get into retailers (although I’ve since understood that making them work is harder, but I’ll go into that another time). And all we ended up doing was cannibalising our opportunities, launching in too many retailers, too many countries and without strategic planning from door to door, market to market (unsurprisingly to me now as I know better – experience and hindsight are dreadfully annoying things).

We had some shocking suppliers

We’ve been blackmailed by one, conned out of money from another who took payment without making a product, we’ve been guided to spend tens of thousands setting up in markets that haven’t materialised, and we’ve had so many logistical delays that have cost us thousands – honestly the list goes on. Whilst we are in a good place now, we should have nipped relationships in the bud a lot sooner and listened to our gut more. When we were gaslighted about certain situations, we should have found someone better sooner.

You can’t have it all as a start-up female founder

We’re in a time of hustle culture where everything is all go, and it’s pretty toxic. You actually can’t do everything and not get burnt out, but unfortunately, as a small business owner that isn’t properly funded, you will have to, and you will likely end up feeling pretty low as a result. I wish with all my heart I could find a way through, but the facts are that I can’t keep punishing myself on this treadmill of disappointment.

I do still have hopes for the future

So where do we go next? My dream is to find someone who is properly set up and in a position to make Faace as successful as I know it should be. It could be someone who already has the infrastructure to make it work – marketing teams, R&D, logistics – everything needed to capitalise on the success we’ve achieved so far. It could be someone who already has a solid customer base and wants to add new skincare products into its portfolio. I don’t know, I’ve never sold a business before. But what I do know is, if they want me to play a small role at any point, then I’ll be there with bells on.

That’s why I need your help

Help me to get the word out there and find a buyer. Share, like, engage, tag people in this video to see if we can find the right person to take on my brilliant brand.

jas_ws

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Instagram above and for my LinkedIn gang, link here.

Wish me luck and as always, I’m here for anyone who is either having similar feelings, or experiencing similar things, and wants to chat.