“Indie brands are at the heart of everything, moving at the speed of their communities.”
So said Danessa Myricks, founder of her eponymous color cosmetics brand, in conversation with Christine Chang and Sarah Lee of Glow Recipe, Mazdack Rassi of Milk Makeup and moderator Kathryn Hopkins, senior beauty editor at WWD.
“If you want to know what’s happening in the moment right now, look at an indie brand. If you want to understand what matters to people right now, it’s an indie brand,” Myricks continued. “The founders are creating from a space of something that they deeply believe in, in support of people that they love and want to serve.”
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Piggybacking off that point, Rassi said agility and culture are the superpowers of indie brands. “They can move fast, and you can react to culture and bring it quickly into your products, your world building, your communication, your company and your brand. Large organizations have a problem building culture, or they think they can buy it from indie brands and can’t maintain it,” he said.
At Glow Recipe, Chang and Lee keep an open line of communication between the brand and its community at all times. To ensure all comments, questions and concerns are addressed, the duo have a standing meeting with the customer care team every Monday morning. “As a rule, we never leave any comments or direct messages or posts unanswered or unresponded within 24 hours. Let’s respond, have that real-time conversation, learn from it, optimize and take action,” Lee said.
This community-first mentality coupled with strategic innovation is what stand out in the competitive landscape of beauty today, Myricks added.
On the topic of innovation, Chang said part of being an indie brand is taking risks. “Yes, you’re looking at data and you’re doing the metrics and looking at sales, but you’re also pairing that with an inherent intuition around what you think your community needs, even before they know,” she said.
With the metrics of success ever-evolving, Rassi underscored the importance of prioritizing profitability over growth. “At the end of the day, it’s feeling good about where you are in your finances, in the bank account, being very cognizant of expenses and making sure that every dollar you put in, there’s a real return,” he said.
“As you scale, it’s important to be present in all channels that your customers are shopping,” Chang added. But just being there isn’t enough.
“Customers today are hyper focused on who you are as a brand,” Myricks said. “Before, it was like our customers are here because they want pro-level products. Now, our customers are here because they believe in what we believe in. They want to know who they’re buying from, they want to know that you’re really thinking about them, that they matter.”