Cheung, as well as fellow Gen Z beauty founders Claudia Sulewski of Cyklar and Deepica Mutyala of Live Tinted, explained how they launched their lines with just one or a very limited selection of products. “You have to bootstrap in those early days and learn everything,” Sulewski said. She launched Cyklar with a singular body cream, before taking feedback to build out her range of body washes and fragrances. “You’ve got to get your hands dirty and learn,” Cheung agreed.
Each of the three panelists were creators before founding their brands, but acknowledge that being a creator-founder does not mean you automatically win with Gen Z. “My followers know Live Tinted is my brand already, and they’re already customers,” Mutyala said. “But you can’t grow just within your audience, there’s a limit to that.”
Mythbusting Gen Z
In our fourth session of the day, US reporter Madeleine Schulz was joined on stage by three young founders, to unpack some common myths around Gen Z. Ziad Ahmed, head of next gen at United Talent Agency (UTA), underlined that co-creation, honesty and collaboration is the way to show this generation your values.
Ahead of the panel, UTA creator and honest comic Jake Shane had just signed a TV deal with Hulu, which signifies a shift, Ahmed said. “When we were kids, the idea was aspirational excellence, right? You want to look perfect and be perfect, and that’s really what was sold to us,” he said. “Now, it’s about aspirational unapologeticness. We’re looking for permission to be our full selves. We’re tired of self-editing and self-curating. We’re tired of all this performance that we’re asked to do.”
While much of the event was focused on digital approaches to business, Pia Mance, founder of jewelry label Heaven Mayhem, suggested that Gen Z prefers to connect offline. Heaven Mayhem often hosts community events for regular customers, to learn from them and get to know them as friends, a sentiment shared by Soshe Beauty founder Sahar Rohani. It goes beyond simply speaking to consumers: Mance and Rohani have each hired Gen Z customers after meeting them at community events. They also frequently receive applications from brand fans, who are eager to work for them. “People think Gen Z don’t want to work; they do, just not for you,” Rohani said.