Leadership·How I made my first millionEuropeA 26-year-old MBA student launched a beauty while studying—and it’s now stocked in Sephora, making $10 million a year and expanding into EuropeBy Orianna Rosa RoyleBy Orianna Rosa RoyleAssociate Editor, SuccessOrianna Rosa RoyleAssociate Editor, SuccessOrianna Rosa Royle is the Success associate editor at Fortune, overseeing careers, leadership, and company culture coverage.
She was previously the senior reporter at Management Today, Britain's longest-running publication for CEOs. SEE FULL BIO Most university students can be found chasing internships or partying too hard.
But not Amy Roe, who was launching a beauty brand. Image vided by PRMost university students can be found chasing internships or partying too hard. But not Amy Roe.
Instead, she could be found concocting ideas for a beauty brand and doing market re (or rather, testing ducts out) on fellow MBA students at Columbia School.
Growing up in a family environment, Roe enrolled in the university’s MBA gram in 2017 at 26 and uoted from South Korea to the U.S.
specifically to gain the acumen needed to kick-start her own venture—and her parents into entrepreneurship. But it wasn’t until moving stateside that she set her focus on the beauty industry.
“Back then, it wasn’t a really common thing to start a beauty while doing your MBA,” she tells Fortune.
However, having witnessed the explosion of people clean eating and “grabbing salads” while she was studying, Roe knew that it was only a matter of time until people cared as much what they put on their faces as in their bodies.
“Back in Korea, my mom used all the remaining food ingredients to make a face mask,” she explains.
“Moving to New York City I saw a lot of people craving all the superfood-infused ingredients for their diet.” So she got to work on bringing her Korean-heritage-inspired and superfood-infused skin-care line to salad-loving New Yorkers.
Launch your before it’s 100% ready The first year of Roe’s MBA was mostly dedicated to market re.
“The first thing I was figuring out was, what is going to be the most consumer-likable duct?” she says, while adding that she conducted surveys on some 300 fellow MBA students to find out which ducts were .
Sheet masks, which Roe says are in South Korea, weren’t with those studying at Columbia School: “I was able to out what type of ducts I wanted to launch, and then after that, of course, I started to develop the duct lines.” Similarly, she had students test out duct samples and submit reviews, so that she could modify the formula accordingly.
“The fellow students were a really helpful resource because those people are not in the beauty industry,” she says, adding that they were able to give a genuine consumer’s perspective.
By 2019—while Roe was finishing up her second and final year of university—the company Byroe was born. Now it’s stocked in Sephora and is bringing in $10 million a year.
Revenues have been doubling year over year, and the team has grown from a one-woman band to a team of 12.
Looking back, her top tip to fellow entrepreneurial students is to not wait for the to be perfect to launch it.
“Even if you’re 100% sure of the , it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be 100% successful,” she says.
“So I think starting the is the most important thing, then making the right changes at the right timing is also important.” Instead of waiting for perfection, Roe suggests launching the when it’s 70% ready.
“Once you start running the , then make it better. That’s how I started,” she adds. Global expansion Less than five years since its conception, Byroe has just launched in the U.K.
“We are currently in Sephora and Alyaka [an online organic beauty store], but we are in the cess of distributing to a lot of the high-end department stores, beauty specialty spas, and boutiques,” Roe says.
She’s hoping to emulate the ’s stateside success, but it’s not been without difficulties. Before even launching, Byroe experienced a major setback: “Some of the ingredients that are allowed in U.S.
regulations are not okay with the U.K. market,” Roe explains, and reformulating, relabeling, and then registering ducts in accordance with British regulations took a year and a half. “Entering the U.K.
market is definitely tough. It’s not an easy route,” Roe says.
What’s more, even now that the ducts are safely in the hands of the British public, Roe has spotted some glaring consumer differences between her transcontinental target .
She’s already noticed that British consumers are more results-driven, sustainability-focused and brand-loyal than their American counterparts.
So Roe is taking her own advice and changing the brand’s strategy as she goes.
Byroe has already pivoted its marketing to focus more on clinical trials and real results from people using its ducts, instead of relying on slick photos and s to sell the duct.
But Roe believes the brand has turned the corner in Britain. If all goes well, she predicts that revenue from the U.K. arm of the will reach “similar levels to what the U.S.
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