Communities want to co-create

A 15-year-old creator just pulled 87,000 people into a New Jersey mall for a skincare launch.

Eighty-seven thousand people.

The creator is Salish Matter, daughter of YouTuber Jordan Matter, and together with Julia Straus - former CEO of Sweaty Betty and Tula Skincare - they launched Sincerely Yours, a skincare brand.

The numbers are absolutely bonkers.

Fans started lining up at 7pm the night before.

By 6am the mall was already at capacity.

Salish took over 450 selfies with her community throughout the day.

Sephora shelves were emptied in under an hour.

Limited edition merch sold out instantly.

The brand's TikTok and Instagram hit 400,000 followers in under two weeks.

Wild stuff.

This was 5 years of consistent content and community building paying off in the most spectacular way possible.

Jordan Matter put it: "It wasn't a one-day promo; it was five years of showing up every week with Salish, letting people into our lives, and earning a real relationship. That joy on stage, the waves, the high-fives, wasn't manufactured. It was the result of a long, steady connection."

That consistency turned an audience into a community, and a community into a customer base that showed up in tens of thousands.

What's brilliant about this is how authentic Salish's involvement was in the actual product development.

She didn't lend her name to a corporate skincare line.

She helped name the brand, chose packaging colours, tested lab samples with her friends, worked with a teen advisory board that shaped product names, packaging, and copy.

That level of genuine involvement makes the products authentic for teens and trustworthy for parents.

It's co-creation.

Julia Straus nailed it when she said: "Gen Alpha does not just want products. They want to be included. They spot anything performative instantly and expect a seat at the table."

This is what most brands completely miss when they try to reach younger audiences.

They think they can just hire a young influencer to post about their product and call it authentic marketing.

But Gen Alpha has grown up with content creators.

They can smell inauthenticity from miles away.

The Sincerely Yours launch worked because it was built on genuine relationships rather than transactional partnerships.

Salish's audience trusted her because she'd been authentic with them for years.

So - when she said she'd helped create these products, they believed her because they'd watched her grow up online.

The lesson here imo:

Authentic community building over time creates customer loyalty that's infinitely more valuable than paid advertising.

When people feel genuinely connected to a creator or brand, they become evangelists who bring their friends, share on social media, and create organic word-of-mouth marketing that scales exponentially.

Building real relationships with your audience takes years, but when you finally launch something, the response can be overwhelming.

Communities want to co-create, not just consume.

When you involve your audience from the start, the turnout takes care of itself.

Go get after it!

Remember, the creator mindset is all you need to grow 🌱

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