How to Build a Beauty Brand People Believe In (ft. Tower 28, Danessa Myricks Beauty, Crown Affair)

It's easier than ever to launch a beauty brand—and harder than ever to make it last. In this first-ever Aspire founders roundtable, Danessa Myricks (Danessa Myricks Beauty), Dianna Cohen (Crown Affair), and Amy Liu (Tower 28) get honest about what it actually takes to build and scale a brand people believe in.

These aren’t early ideas—they’re Sephora-scale businesses: Tower 28, launched in 2019, now with a reported $228 million valuation; Crown Affair, launched in 2020 and scaled from roughly 55 to 600 Sephora doors, with a dry shampoo that has ranked #1 in the category; and Danessa Myricks Beauty, a profitable-since-launch business that had already grown to roughly 500 SKUs before entering Sephora. From getting into Sephora and staying there, to raising capital vs. bootstrapping, to building community you can't reverse-engineer—this is the real playbook for 2026.

In this episode, you’ll learn: What separates brands that last, and why launching is easy but sustaining is hard How to build community with soul, purpose, and mission The truth about retail and the operational and financial discipline it takes to scale in Sephora How to fund your vision, what outside money is really for, and why finding aligned investors is key How founders evolve with intention and decide what to control, when to delegate, and different ways to lead a brand through growth