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Aspire with Emma Grede

Aspire with Emma Grede

How to Build a Beauty Brand People Believe In (ft. Tower 28, Danessa Myricks Beauty, Crown Affair)

Sep 8, 2026 · 1h 20m

Coming soon to iPhone. Already have it? “Listen in Starcast” takes you straight there.

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About this episode

It's easier than ever to launch a beauty brand—and harder than ever to make it last. In this first-ever Aspire founders roundtable, Danessa Myricks (Danessa Myricks Beauty), Dianna Cohen (Crown Affair), and Amy Liu (Tower 28) get honest about what it actually takes to build and scale a brand people believe in. These aren’t early ideas—they’re Sephora-scale businesses: Tower 28, launched in 2019, now with a reported $228 million valuation; Crown Affair, launched in 2020 and scaled from roughly 55 to 600 Sephora doors, with a dry shampoo that has ranked #1 in the category; and Danessa Myricks Beauty, a profitable-since-launch business that had already grown to roughly 500 SKUs before entering…