How beauty startup Sisterwould made $25,000 in sales in just two-and-a-half weeks after launch

The co-founders of Melbourne beauty startup Sisterwould have revealed that two-and-a-half years of growing their social media and email list prior to launching their beauty brand with a purpose saw the business rake in $25,000 in sales just two-and-a-half weeks into its launch.

Co-founders and sisters-in-law Rina Gocaj-Bekiri and Floriye Elmazi founded Sisterwould in 2019 with a passion to create a haircare brand that encapsulates inclusion and accessibility. 

With an email waitlist of 14,200 in their pre-launch phase, the pair officially launched the brand’s first products — shampoo and conditioner in bottles embedded with braille and tactile imprinting, developed in partnership with Vision Australia —  in 2022.

The brand, which has 128,000 followers on Instagram and has gone viral on TikTok, has also announced it will be launching with a US retailer this year, despite operating for only five months.

Speaking to SmartCompany, Gocaj-Bekiri said she and Elmazi started building the email waitlist in 2020 because they knew community was key to launching the brand. This focus on community has also been the most instrumental tactic in growing the brand’s social media presence.

“We started building our email waitlist back in 2020 where we initially started with Survey Monkey surveys, Facebook Groups, Instagram polls and DMs and slowly consolidated a database of people interested in what we were building and we started creating a community that would answer our questions but also have questions of their own, which helped us really focus on product development,” she explains. 

“And we wanted to ensure that we don’t launch to crickets, so part of building that community included incentivised giveaways, influencer collaborations and takeovers where they would join our Instagram and do a ‘get ready with me’ or what we called ‘start the day our sisters way’ and our followers would follow around an influencer for the day where he/she would talk about their day, fitness routine, hair regimen or skincare regimen and more.”

This hard work paid off in bucket loads when it came to September 2022 when Sisterwould was ready to launch. The brand leveraged this community and achieved $25,000 in sales in the space of a few weeks, without spending a dollar on marketing. 

“We were honestly surprised and overwhelmed by the response,” says Gocaj-Bekiri.

“It made us realise that all the hard work we put in years prior was worth it especially because so many people thought we were crazy trying to grow a community without a product.”

Where to next

Following the successful launch, Gocaj-Bekiri and Elmazi firmly believe the future of Sisterwould lies in partnering with retailers that share Sisterwould’s inclusive and accessible mission. 

“While our online presence allows us to reach a wide audience, we recognise the importance of being available in physical stores to cater to all our customers, including the blind and visually impaired community who enjoy the experience of shopping in real life,” says Gocaj-Bekir.

“By collaborating with the right retailers, we can ensure that our products are easily accessible to everyone.”

Sisterwould is “actively” working on retail partnerships, says Gocaj-Bekir, and while she isn’t able to reveal the details of the impending US launch, she says the team is “thrilled about the opportunity to reach even more customers through this exciting venture”.

“As a young brand, we acknowledge the challenges ahead, but we are confident that our commitment to inclusivity and accessibility will guide us towards a successful and impactful future,” she says. 

Gocaj-Bekir explains that Sisterwould commitment has three core pillars: people, our planet, and purpose. 

“We were motivated by the dissatisfaction we felt with the existing market, which failed to cater to the diverse needs of consumers. Our own personal experiences played a significant role in shaping our mission. Both my co-founder/sister-in-law and I have mothers with visual impairments who wear glasses and face challenges in reading small labels on bottles and packaging, whether it’s outside or in the shower,” she says.

Knowing that many others also share these frustrations and even greater challenges, the founders spent the next three years on a “research journey”. 

“This involved in-depth exploration of the beauty industry, consumer behavior, and the frustrations experienced by individuals,” says Gocaj-Bekir.

“Our findings revealed staggering statistics: there are 43 million people living with blindness and 295 million people living with moderate to severe visual impairments worldwide.

“We firmly believe that everyone deserves to experience the joy and pleasure of washing their hair and scalp. We recognised that for some, this seemingly simple ritual is often taken for granted.”

At its heart, the Sisterwould brand is built on a belief that “every individual should have equal access to products and experiences,” says Gocaj-Bekir.

“We strive to break down barriers and empower individuals with visual impairments,” she says. 

“It is our business’s purpose to encourage inclusivity, ensuring that everyone can indulge in the pleasure of haircare without limitations.”