Sixteen of the brightest and best beauty founders are gathered together in a photograph studio in Midtown Manhattan for a Beauty Inc cover shoot and the first-day-of-school vibes are in full effect.

There are shrieks of pleasure, hugs between long-lost friends, oohs and ahhs over outfits and a fast sharing of upcoming projects, before the group is named to order by the principal — on this case the photographer whose task is to shoot a category picture, so to talk.

It’s no wonder that the room crackles with energy. That is probably the most dynamic group of founders the sweetness industry has seen because the OG indies back within the ’90s. They’re connectors, a lot of whom had established careers out and in of beauty, who understand the art of connection on a level that transcends just product.

“The wonder industry is really being democratized, in a way that’s never been seen before,” said Tina Chen Craig, who had a successful profession in fashion and sweetness before founding the skincare line, U Beauty. “It’s founders with a voice, a vision, a passion, who’re capable of create and reach a community.”

The creation of that deep bond with consumers is certainly one of the important thing components of success today, a period when the barriers to entry in the sweetness category have never been so low, yet the hurdles to success so high.

“The flexibility to interact with consumers, to construct community — that each one results in the flexibility to create organic demand,” said Wealthy Gersten, cofounder and managing partner of True Beauty Ventures. “That notion of constructing relationships with consumers and constructing a community of name evangelists is admittedly vital.”

Ilya Seglin, managing director of Threadstone, notes the gravitation toward “working founders,” citing makeup artists Gucci Westman  of Westman Atelier and Mario Dedivanovic of Makeup by Mario, as examples. “In a world that’s so crammed with product, how do you break through the noise?” he asked. “You do with with a large following and/or a very differentiated narrative and also you drive that home and grow your audience.

“When there may be a lot clutter, the patron goes back to authenticity,” Seglin continued. “Ultimately, you wish someone to let you know what is nice and you wish it to come back from a spot of authority.”

Such is the case with cosmetic chemist Ron Robinson, who founded his brand, BeautyStat, with greater than 20 years of industry experience under his belt. “A whole lot of brands have good product. The bar has risen,” he said. “Today, it’s the opposite pieces, the emotional connection. The incontrovertible fact that I even have this data that not lots of other people have in a public way is our secret sauce — that authority and willingness to teach.”

To wit, Robinson has turn out to be an authority adviser for his community not only on his brand, but on all brands, products and ingredients. “Customers are shopping all over the place — multiple brands, drugstore, specialty, luxury. I understand that customers are curious,” he continued, “and after they see that we’re objective, it drives their engagement with us.”

Such depth of information also drives engagement beyond the category and ties right into a deeper purpose than product for a lot of founders. Before cofounding Dieux Skin, Charlotte Palermino was a successful journalist, whose entrepreneurial foray was inspired when she saw how engaged people were together with her in-depth skincare tutorials focused on efficacy, ingredients and the science behind a lot of today’s hottest products. “Beauty might be considered frivolous, but the way it makes you’re feeling and the way it helps you be perceived on the planet has enormous impact,” she said. “Not only that, I see people becoming interested  in science through beauty. We use it as a tool of education, a strategy to empower people through information, and likewise as a strategy to have a good time.”

Like Palermino, Ami Colé founder Diarrha N’Diaye had a decade-plus of experience within the industry, including at L’Oréal and Glossier, before she began her brand. That perspective has given her not only an understanding of consumers today, but a key operational strategy, too.

“There are so many alternative tools and mediums to achieve your audience — which is great, but in addition difficult,” said N’Diaye. “Today, everyone can create a story, find their area of interest audience and connect, so the challenge as a founder is how do you drive home why you must exist and what impact do you wish to drive.”

For N’Diaye, her purpose is clearer than any social media moment. “My focus is how can I make a 10- to 12-year-old brown girl living in Harlem who’s the kid of immigrant parents, how do I make her feel proud, seen, celebrated,” she said. “Which means making a secure space, whether digitally or in-store, with the ability to have conversations that feel authentic or going to a shelf and seeing something that works for you at first swipe.”

Just as N’Diaye named her brand after her mother, who emigrated to the U.S. from Senegal and opened a hair-braiding salon in Harlem, Babba Rivera, the founding father of Ceremonia, was highly influenced by her childhood. She grew up in Sweden because the child of political refugees from Chile, with one foot in each culture. Rivera’s father was a hairdresser, and he or she headed to tech after graduating from university, becoming a part of the team that launched Uber in Sweden and scaling it from an organization of 120 people to greater than 12,000. It was when she began a brand marketing agency that Rivera became excited by hair.

“Beauty is the brand new tech industry — it’s booming and everybody wants in, which implies it’s highly competitive and recent brands are popping up on daily basis,” she said. “To succeed as a founder, you’ve gotten to dare to think in another way.

“For a bit of while, I had imposter syndrome, being in beauty and never having beauty experience,” Rivera continued.

Now, she considers her outside-of-the-industry experience a key superpower, each from an operations standpoint, in addition to buyer. “Beauty has been driven by men in suits who’re disconnected to real-life hair problems and skin concerns, and that has opened an enormous wave of opportunity for founders who can really represent their customers.”

That dual track — of mission and makeup, or purpose and product, when you will — is a key differentiator for today’s generation of founders. “It is a representation of what America looks like. It’s more diverse,” said Carolyn Bojanowski, Sephora’s executive vice chairman of merchandising. “Also they are founders who’re clients. They get tactics. They get digital. They’re on TikTok personally and with their brands.

“It’s the primary generation that’s grown up where specialty is the dominant channel,” Bojanowski continued. “That makes our lives easier. There’s an implicit understanding of our stores and our loyalty program. There’s an ease about it.”

There could also be an ease — but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Palermino, who has parlayed her background as a author and deep curiosity concerning the science of skincare right into a highly engaged community who follow each her and the brand she cofounded with product developer Joyce de Lemos and inventive director Marta Freedman, remembers with fun how glamorous all of it seemed when she was a journalist in her 20s. “It might be perceived that way, but the truth isn’t very glamorous,” she said. “A lot of your job is puzzle solving. You’re running an organization on so many alternative levels. My background is media, and never only do I work in media — because I even have emails to jot down, social media, my blog — but I’m also working on production supply chains, trying to know our carbon footprint, doing stability testing on product development.

“There are such a lot of moving pieces,” she continued. “I adore it because I want lots of projects to remain stimulated, but it surely’s like there’s a large puzzle you’ve gotten to unravel and there’s all the time a missing piece.”

“Being a founder is for a selected personality,” agreed Laney Crowell, who launched Saie in 2019 after working in editorial and brand communications. “Yes, you’ve gotten to have that entepreneurial spirit, but you furthermore may must be very comfortable with highs, lows, extreme speed, acceleration. My job changes every three months and I’m super comfortable with that,” she continued, ticking off the roles she plays — founder, chief executive officer, chief purpose officer, chief sustainability officer.

“I’m chief storyteller,” Crowell said. “Currently I’m the protector of the Saie way — our culture, which I’m keen about and ensuring that everyone seems to be involved in it, engaged with it and executing it.”

Such values matter today — each as an expression internally, to align teams, but outwardly as well, particularly at a time when consumers need to know way more than simply what goes right into a bottle or tube.

“People need to know what the corporate’s ethos is beyond the efficacy of the product. They need to know who the founder is and their values,” said Craig.

“People say, ‘the bubble goes to burst,’ but there may be all the time more room,” she continued. “The bubble isn’t going to burst. People need to feel they’ve equity in what they’re buying and can spend money with brands they consider in that align with their values.”