However lighthearted the viral TikTok proverb “being delulu is the solulu” may have been intended, it articulates quite plainly a quietly understood requisite within the founder community.“Just a little delulu,” laughed Liu, a beauty veteran whose brand was born out of her own lifelong struggle with eczema.
Beauty Pie marks the first time Kilgore has taken external investment for any of her brands, and there has “definitely been a learning curve,” she said. While it’s not uncommon for founders to feel a tension between growth and brand vision, she and Liu have found weighing investment through the lens of compatibility as a key to protecting both.
“Your first customer is yourself,” said Chen Craig. “Be obsessed with it — if you aren’t obsessed with your own product like a teenager in love, then you probably should not do it.”“We said ‘no’ to some investment very early on, knowing that the marriage would not have worked out they way we wanted it to,” said Beauchamp, who has since gained investment from venture capital firm Fearless Fund.