Selling for $700MM and No One Knows Who You Are.

Andrea Lisbona just sold Touchland for 700MM with *no* personal brand. Do you have to be a lifestyle influencer to be a successful consumer CEO? Let's find out.

On Monday, May 12th, my group chats, Instagram feed and Substack newsletters were flooded with the jaw-dropping and inspiring news that Touchland was getting acquired for 700MM dollars. The brand - now fifteen years old - is a testament to what can happen when you successfully reinvent a sleepy category, focus on thoughtful growth over hoarding venture capital (Touchland has raised under 2MM in its lifetime), develop hero products over a haphazard catalogue and relentlessly talk to your target consumer.

But for me, it signals something even more significant.

Andrea Lisbona moved from Barcelona to the US to create the “Apple” of hand sanitizers. She just exited for 700MM.

Over the last few months, I’ve spoken with dozens of women founders of various consumer brands about their current state of mind given the financial climate (is it a recession? Is it NOT a recession?), the on-again-off-again Trump tariffs, fluctuations in consumer spending and a general sense of fuck. It’s rough out here.

And more often than not, when women are backed into a corner to generate more sales, widen their top of funnel and push back against economic headwinds, they feel pressure to act. And “act,” in this case, means becoming a more active part of their brand and marketing funnel. That means becoming more front-facing. It means getting on-camera. It means making their story part of their brand story and sharing a look behind-the-scenes, because that’s what young consumers want and expect now anyway, right? When these brands have the same budgets they did six months ago, the founder and team have to get creative and think through ways to make more money without spending money that doesn’t exist.

For many of the founders I’ve spoken to, there’s been a mounting pressure - for years - to be both an operator and an influencer. To run the P+L and manage the team and build out the 3-year vision while also setting up a ring-light in the bathroom to showcase your 10-step morning routine and share your go-to afternoon smoothie and favorite workout classes and get that ShopMy up and running so you can solidify your It-Girl status as Holy-Grail-Curating Queen! But it seems the pressure to influence feels heavier now, even though founders are anxious about being stretched too thin.

And we know the founder-led narrative works for female founders - which is why I recently told Beauty Independent I feared this format was the future. Just look at Chelsea Parke of PARKE, Babba Rivera of Ceremonia, Leah and Yasaman at Good Girl Snacks, and Bozoma Saint John of Eve by Boz. These women reflect and epitomize the idealized version of their customer in some way, even if it’s subtle, and therefore have the credibility to sell product back to them with a quiet promise of “if you buy this, you will inch closer to my life or my look or my lifestyle.” And in a twisted way, it’s almost like the female consumer needs to believe that the woman they are buying from is “worth” supporting, so by putting her front and center, the brand can check that box. In my mind, this is so much of what women marketing to women is, even if it’s never said. Even if it’s never that overt.

An Account Director at an award-winning, bicoastal PR agency I spoke with for this piece, agrees wholeheartedly.

“I’ve worked with beauty brands of all sizes, and when we’re working with a female founder, one of the first things we do is work on media training” she told me, “I always recommend having a social presence to make a brand’s following and community feel more connected to its founder. In the competitive landscape, this is crucial for brand success. No one wants to just buy from a brand - it’s like we have to have some type of reassurance that the people who founded it are smart, successful, and yet good people.”

But what Andrea Lisbona’s 700MM exit shows me, and what Ju Rhyu’s 630MM exit at Hero Cosmetics proves, too, is that maybe we’re both kind of wrong. Maybe it doesn’t have to be this way, even in the beauty category, and that sometimes, picking the right category, the right business strategy and straight-up, ruthless execution can prevail. I mention Rhyu and her 2022 exit because she has 5,000 Instagram followers and from her own output seems to have no interest in selling you, the consumer, on adopting her look or her life or her lifestyle. She posts proudly about her business, her family, her travels and her accomplishments - as she should - but a quick glance at her feed will show you what I mean.

It’s not that Lisbona of Touchland was totally quiet on social, either. She just didn’t do the “you want to be me, so buy my brand” playbook we see so many female founders doing. Her content, like Rhyu’s, centered mostly on milestones at Touchland, her husband and son, and exciting press wins and collabs the company secured. There’s no picture-perfect breakfasts to salivate over ala Matilda Djerf’s Scandi strawberries or Reels of her morning ritual or house-porn to speak of. She is not an influencer pushing us to buy Touchland so we can be like Andrea. She is a CEO with an Instagram account. Her Tik Tok is the same way.

Looking through her content reminded me much more of how male founders typically promote their brands on social, if they do so at all. I started racking my brain for male founders of big, well-known brands that do proactive personal brand building ala the women I mentioned earlier, the ones who influence and CEO at the same time. Are there any male founders out there sharing their breakfasts with us? Or their workout routines? Or linking to their favorite products on ShopMy? Are any male founders of well-known CPG or retail companies making their story part of their brand story and sharing a look behind-the-scenes on social, as a way to beef up their top-of-funnel and better connect with their younger consumers at the bottom of the funnel?

Dear reader - the answer was basically…no.

Emphasis on “basically,” because I did find a few intriguing exceptions thanks to my very helpful Instagram community and a poll I conducted asking this very same thing.

When I did my initial search, I was shocked to learn that the founder of viral olive oil behemoth Graza has a private Instagram and no public Tik Tok. Same with Joe Kudla, founder at Vuori. Same for the founders of Rhone. You can make your own determination of Olipop Ben Goodwin’s Instagram, and he has no Tik Tok I can find or share (compare this to Allison Ellsworth at Poppi and we have a pretty exciting case study). None of the two male founders of Hims have public social profiles. Same for the founders of Farmers Dog. Danny Harris of All Yoga is also private. These are all massive businesses and leaders in their respective categories, and categories that would benefit from having an aspirational founder promoting the brand by showcasing a certain lifestyle. But while the founders openly go on podcasts and show up for events, they are not part of the funnel. They simply operate.

As for the exceptions (beyond Elon Musk, the Coinbase CEO and men with namesake fashion brands - I am not counting a Michael Kors or a Jacquemus because that type of brand-building has always been persona-based and always will be), they fall into a few categories.

1. Queer male founders who either began as celebrities and then became founders, or who are just founders.

See:

JVN of JVN Hair

David Yi of good light cosmetics

Mario Dedivanovic of Makeup by Mario

Patrick Starr of ONE/SIZE

Sammy Nussdorf of Meadow Lane

Brad Mondo of XMONDO HAIR

Harry Styles of Pleasing (we can debate Harry’s queerness another time. I am putting him on this list based on information I have and my beliefs about him but that’s not the point of this Substack!!!)

Chris Salgado of ATWATER

Andrew Fitzsimmons of Andrew Fitzsimmons Hair

Jerrod Blandino of Polite Society and Too Faced Cosmetics

Simon Huck of Lemme

There are many more…

2) Founders who began as operators and pretty exclusively focus on either health and performance-based content, business optimization content, company wins, or barely post at all. These seem to be the few appropriate content pillars or approaches for straight male founders, based on my research.

Peter Rahal of David Protein

Dr. Jonathan Leary of Remedy Place

Chip Wilson of Lululemon

Will Ahmed of Whoop

Michael Chernow of Kreatures of Habit

Ben Sharf of Platter

JT Barnett of CreatorX

Ben Francis of Gymshark

Ryan Babenzien of Jolie

Tom Bilyeu of Quest Nutrition

Shane Heath of Mudwtr

3) Finally, straight vibes content. This content communicates the energy of the founder’s brand but avoids oversharing. This approach felt the most influencer-y to me, minus the volume of content we’d usually expect and the explicit guidance on how to live out the moodboard in front of us. And importantly - none of them have a public Tik Tok account.

Sasha Koehn of Buck Mason

Marty Bell of Vacation

Nima Jalali of Salt and Stone

With these suggestions came tons of commentary from my community - including many founders - all in the same vein of:

“This is crazy. I had to really THINK to even find two examples of male founders with personal brands.”

“I think this is an important convo. I think the pressure to be public-facing is very gendered, women deal with it a lot more than men do.”

“Please crack the code on this because I am *exhausted.* Female founders have to be an expert at everything, performing constantly, and it’s so tiring. And I’m more of an introvert so it’s really hard for me.”

“Maybe men don’t give a shit as much of having aspirational men to look up to? Versus women are constantly trying to seek out inspiration in different avenues from other women?”

“This is fun to think about. I feel like men are only allowed to do and promote food and beverage. Real boy shit.”

“I’d really have to ponder global male brands that fit this category. I truly don’t know.”

“I’ve seen some guys do it on LinkedIn but I think there is so much more pressure on women to be the face of their brand.”

The PR executive I spoke with had a lot to say on the topic, too. “The feminist in me would like to say that the reason male founders don’t require this level of transparency is because frankly - who wants to watch a straight white man document a day in the life? I think female-founder content feels more special, more authentic, more relatable. A girl watching could think oh…that could be me one day. Whereas the relatability just doesn’t hold for male founders. To that end, I work with a couple brands that have a male co-founder who are active on social media regarding their brands, but it’s always in a more business-centric way. I think men have to prove their business acumen and women have to prove that we’re nice, approachable humans. Which feels a bit like a microcosm of societal narratives…”

And my favorite response of them all, from a very successful male founder I know who swore off social media and no longer posts: “Social media is attention seeking for everyone but especially men. It’s performative. It’s fake. I think you’re doing this and participating with the problem. Just stop posting on everything. That’s my comment.”

OKAY BABE! THANK YOU!

To better understand what’s going on here, and whether it’s true that women face more pressure to publicly shill their brands on social, I asked a few more trusted experts for their take. I wanted to unpack how we can square a successful exit like Lisbona at Touchland with what we all see online every day: female-founder-CEOs acting like influencers instead of just operating, like so many men are “allowed” to do. I’m always aware that there may be variables I’m not thinking about, and overwhelmed with the frustration and exhaustion my community seemed to be feeling about this constant need to govern AND perform, I wanted to connect with experts that could help me look at things with a bit more distance.

I first summoned

Ochuko Akpovbovbo

, whose newsletter I read religiously for her spicy-yet-grounded takes on all things consumer news, book recs, entertainment gossip and tech, because I’ve known for a while now that like me, she was a secret “girlboss” junkie - obsessed with the ever-evolving label, the people who claim it, and the undying allure of “The Female Founder.”

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Ochuko Akpovbovbo

from

as seen on

“The Founder Story is a powerful thing, particularly in today's consumer landscape where brand is EVERYTHING. I always say, no one is creating products people need any more, and at the same time, there's nothing new under the sun. As products become more wants than needs, and barriers to entry fall, these consumer startups are just competing on brand now. Brand is the moat for so many of these startups. Storytelling is an integral part of that brand building, and the truth is that THE FEMALE FOUNDER is still rare enough that it makes for a great story. Extra points if she's white and attractive.

…It’s true that these male founders often do not need to rely on their persona's, but I'd also argue that it could never be as effective even if they tried. The truth is, the image of the Girlboss is not dead, and won't be as long as THE FEMALE FOUNDER is still a unicorn in these parts.

What you'll also find is that many of these female founders are creating products for women- women for whom their success is very much part of the fantasy they are buying into. And that can be very effective. Of course it's a double edged sword because these female founders are then held up to standards that are just impossible to keep up with. Now I think about it, female founders leading companies whose products aren't highly gendered tend to be less in the spotlight, and this says something.”

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With this new nugget in mind - that women are creating and marketing products to and for women, and that maybe women who are making less gendered products are not building personal brands as aggressively - I reached out to Brand Baby’s Caroline Albro because I knew she’d give me a measured take that closely reflects Gen Z’s POV, but that she too would expose layers to this that I truly had not yet thought deeply about. I specifically asked her about the double-standard Ochuko mentioned, too.

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Caroline Albro

from

Brand Baby

“Women control a huge amount of consumer purchasing decisions, particularly in certain categories like fashion, beauty, home goods, wellness, etc. So as a result of that (but also somewhat fueling it), there are a lot more consumer products that are marketed to women than men – whether it’s makeup or skincare or apparel. When consumer products are marketed specifically towards women, it creates a natural environment where female founders can authentically represent their own brands.

It makes sense for female founders to promote such consumer products in founder-first content because they can actually showcase their own product usage in relatable and authentic yet aspirational ways. The female founder of a makeup brand can actually show herself applying her blush. Of course, an influencer can do this for a brand too, but founders can also create powerful building-in-public content that shows how they’re running a real business. This transparency meets Gen Z’s desire for authenticity from brands while also lending credibility and relatability to the brand.

And lastly, while this might not be as true anymore, the content creation space was originally largely dominated by women, particularly in the lifestyle space. And I think in many ways, posting on social media as a creator is still more socially normalized among women, whereas male founders may still be navigating limiting social norms around vulnerability and personal branding. Perhaps male founders are catching up to founder-first content – time will tell!

Regardless of all those intersecting factors though, there’s no doubt that this is a double standard. There’s an implicit expectation that women founders must personally embody and represent their brands through social content while male founders can remain behind the curtain. Above all, I think it comes down to the fact that female entrepreneurship and leadership in general is usually scrutinized through a different – and often harsher – lens. Audiences look for personal likability and relatability in female founders, which in turn builds brand legitimacy in ways that are rarely demanded of men.

Of course, brand legitimacy can come from other sources too, like values, content, thought leadership, etc. Brands might demonstrate authenticity in a variety of ways, and consumers might seek different signals of authenticity from different brands. But for brands founded by women, it seems like audiences seek founder-first content as a way to build trust in the brand – definitely more so than they do from male founders.”

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So, then, what to do about the implicit expectation? Do all women founders have to cave to it? Do all women founders have to constantly contort themselves toward “personal likability and relatability” to have a shot with Gen Z? Should you buy the fucking ring-light!?! If you don’t, are you fucked?

Let Andrea Lisbona’s success, Ju Rhyu’s success, and this quote from Kate Citron (hopefully) calm you down if you’re an operator who’d prefer to stay strategy, product and margin obsessed, and leave the marketing and funnel stuff to the experts.

“I don’t necessarily believe that founder-led brands are the future,”

Kate Citron

of

False Start

explains, who has run marketing for Glowbar, Thirty Madison, Harry’s and more, “I think they may become more common in certain industries (beauty, cpg, home?) because as more celebrities and influencers launch businesses, the customer becomes more accustomed to engaging with/relation to a spokesperson. That said, my gut tells me that having a public-facing founder won’t influence a company's ability to succeed. A really good product, strong brand, and smart strategy are the bigger indicators of success.”

I’d be curious what consumer investors think of this - so if you’re reading, please comment/chime in/share.

But in the meantime - let this give you some license to toss your ring light in the trash, ladies. I know you want to.