what you can learn from $212 million in sales

Everyone's talking about Hailey Bieber's $1 billion Rhode deal.

Which, fair enough.

A billion is a billion.

But no one is mentioning the person behind the scenes at Rhode that made it all possible…

In this case, that someone is Lauren Ratner.

Lauren is the reason Rhode is worth a billion quid instead of being another failed celebrity beauty line gathering dust in TK Maxx.

She has a background in luxury brand marketing at Michael Kors and Reformation.

Proper operator.

Knows how to actually run businesses.

But let’s just stop for a second and look at what they actually pulled off:

• $0 to $212 million in sales in 3 years.

• All direct-to-consumer. Only 10 products.

• $400 million in earned media value last year alone.

Insane.

And it proves how hard this is to replicate.

Creator thinks:

"I've got 2 million followers, I'll just launch something and they'll buy it."

Then they wonder why their merch drop sells 47 units.

The reality is, star power gets attention.

But attention doesn't automatically become sales.

You need someone who understands customer acquisition, retention, supply chains, all the boring stuff that makes businesses work.

Hailey brought the audience.

Lauren turned that audience into customers.

Big, big difference.

So Rhode didn't simply slap Hailey's name on lip gloss and hope for the best.

They created cultural moments.

They captured insane attention on socials with pop ups, collabs and the infamous lip gloss phone case (even I know about that one).

All contributing to a brand that felt bigger than just "Hailey's beauty line."

Creator-led brands aren't going anywhere.

Obviously.

But the ones that work are going to be partnerships.

Creator brings the audience and cultural relevance.

Operator brings the systems and business expertise.

Together, they build billion-dollar exits.

Separately, one's got great engagement and the other's got a brilliant business plan that nobody cares about.

Anyway, massive congrats to the team 👏

You love to see it!

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

P.S. If you're serious about building an audience that becomes a strategic asset for your business (not just a vanity metric), join us here → 

Did someone forward this to you? Sign up here to get the next one straight to your inbox.

If this email landed in your spam or promotions folder, move it to your primary inbox so you never miss an update from me.