The "Founder-Led" Myth: Why Personality Won't Scale in 2026
The beauty industry is waking up from a decade-long fever dream.
For the last ten years, the playbook was simple: Launch with a face. Whether it was a celebrity, an influencer, or a charismatic expert, the founder’s personality was the primary marketing engine.
But according to McKinsey’s latest State of Fashion: Beauty 2025 report, that engine has stalled. The data reveals a stark reality: Only 13% of consumers cite a brand's founder as a key reason for purchase.
Meanwhile, 39% cite product performance.
The gap between "hype" and "habit" is widening, and it exposes a dangerous ceiling for brands that rely too heavily on their creator.
The "Billion-Dollar" Reality Check
The most damning statistic from the report is this: In the last 20 years, hundreds of founder-led brands have launched. Only three have scaled past $1 billion in annual sales.
Fenty Beauty
Charlotte Tilbury
The Ordinary (Deciem)
What do these three have in common? They didn't just sell a person; they sold a category-defining solution.
Fenty didn’t just rely on Rihanna; it solved the complexion gap with 40 shades.
Charlotte Tilbury didn’t just rely on Charlotte; it created the "Magic Cream" and specific, replicable looks that worked without her being in the room.
The Ordinary didn’t rely on a face at all—it relied on radical ingredient transparency.
Contrast this with the hundreds of influencer brands currently stalled at the $50M–$100M revenue mark. They have followers, but they don't have franchises. When the founder stops posting, the sales stop flowing.
The Pivot: From "Who" to "What"
If you are building a beauty brand in 2025, the mandate is clear: You must operationalize your brand voice.
Your marketing cannot be dependent on the founder holding the camera. To scale beyond the startup phase, you need:
Efficacy over Personality: Content that proves the product works on anyone, not just the founder.
Community over Fandom: A customer base that talks to each other, not just to you.
Franchise over Drops: Hero products that drive recurring revenue (subscriptions), rather than reliance on constant "newness" and limited drops.
The "Founder Era" isn't dead, but it is evolving. The founder is now the spark, not the fuel. If you want to burn for decades, your product has to stand on its own.