Investors tend to think about the world through the lens of the consumer and what macro themes and durable trends will impact them over time. While business-specific diligence is the core part of our work, we’re doing that against the backdrop of evolving consumer demands and broader themes that we are seeing play out – for better or worse – across our portfolios. A few years ago, those themes might have been “clean,” organic, and back-to-nature ethos and premiumization. Last year, investors were acutely focused on supply chain and managing tariffs.  

Today, you can’t leave any board meeting without discussing the K-shaped economy and how most consumers are shifting towards value as they face increasing economic pressures. It seems like price has stopped being a proxy for efficacy or quality as we all demand more of all the products we use every day – better ingredients, better formulas, lower prices, better results, faster speeds, more available. As consumers are trading down on price while trading up on proof, that creates opportunities for efficacy-driven brands that lead with credibility and value.  

Founders intuitively understand how these trends (whether consumer-specific or not) might affect their business, and it’s important to articulate the first and second-order impacts to investors and have a view on how your brand can capitalize.  

While the macro changes every year, the founders who can contextualize their business and positioning with respect to these durable trends really stand out. 

Salt & Stone’s story is a special one to be a part of. Nima and his team built an incredible business and a desirable brand…and it’s not easy to do both.  

The team was relentless about stoking demand and desire by being authentic, creative, and uncompromising. Brand partnerships, limited editions, creative marketing campaigns, and new form factors like body mists and creams pulled in new consumers who stayed well past trial, and gave long-term loyalists something new to collect.  

And where a consumer sees a shiny brand from the outside, we as investors were able to see the strong engine of business fundamentals thrumming underneath the surface. The team was led by experienced operators that maintained a disciplined NPD pipeline, a maniacal focus on healthy product margins, a strong repeat purchase rate, and an intentional effort to build a true omnichannel mix across Amazon, DTC, and physical retail.  

Ultimately, the Salt & Stone team has a unique combination of creative vision, pulse on the consumer, and execution of the less glamorous parts of business building. And more than anything, the team was stacked – as the business grew, experienced operators joined across the board to back Nima’s vision. It was humbling and rewarding to watch the business evolve from our investment to exit. 

What separates the exceptional brands is the ability to build real desire and sustain it at scale, all while the fundamentals keep performing. But the best part is the people, and the right ones can make it all happen. As an investor, these are the teams I get most excited about backing. 

It’s definitely product first! Really good products are what we’re all passionate about at the end of the day. It’s the goop in the bottle, the packaging, the brand storytelling – you need the foundation of a great product to be able to build a great business.  

The product’s launch into market tells us a lot, too: the positioning and assortment tell you about the team’s understanding of the market and their competitors, and whether they understand what has or hasn’t worked for brands that came before them. When you’re first introduced to a brand, there should be a consumer you can describe, a few retailers or channels where it’s a fit, and (if you picture a scaled-up version of the brand) several strategic acquirors whose portfolios it could slot into. 

The other half of it is the founder – and that’s the part I keep thinking about long after the meeting. I love seeing someone light up talking about their product, and when they are just as open about what’s hard, because the ups and downs are all part of the job. Beyond that, it’s about what makes this the right person to build this particular business – the advantage only they have – and whether they know what they’re not good at and will hire for it. It’s also great when founders aim for where they want the business to land at exit, because you can usually tell when the strategy falls out of that ambition. 

More tactically, investors are trying to figure out what gives a brand its special sauce – it could be a patent, insider know-how, a marketing superpower, or speed-to-market driven by manufacturing. To tell whether that differentiation is landing in the early stages of a brand’s launch, we watch follower growth, organic reviews, retailer inbounds, and press coverage. And when we chat with founders, I’m always impressed by someone who has done their homework and has a plan for the capital they’re raising since it gives me the most excitement about where to lean in and support them. 

Passion comes through right away when a founder loves what they’re building, and that’s the fuel behind the business. From there, it’s about whether they can describe the problem they’re solving and the product they built clearly enough that their audience gets it right away. Layering on data points about performance, market size, competitors, margins, or operations adds credibility and shows they know their business inside and out. 

The Q&A is also important – answers to hard questions are hard to rehearse and can show what it might be like to work together. Founders can also use the Q&A to acknowledge the places they want support. Some of my favorite conversations with founders have left me with a clear idea of where to lean in to help them scale, and that’s when I feel most excited to keep chatting.

We’ve been chatting about products, but the more time I spend in our world, the more I realize this is really a people business. Surrounding yourself with the right people on every front smooths your path and can help you avoid making mistakes as you grow. 

Having people in your orbit who have been down that road before helps you make better decisions along the way. The right retailer matters, but a real partner who believes in you can help you optimize timing, door count, assortment, and launch support. Same idea with supply chain and manufacturing – the right partners give you the flexibility to say yes when demand shows up and solve problems with you when there are hiccups. It goes on across every function. 

Same concept applies for investors – getting to know them before you need them means fundraising doesn’t feel like a round of cold intros, and in the meantime, you get to see what they can do for you while they’re trying to win you over. A word from another founder in your ecosystem is still the highest-signal, lowest-cost endorsement out there, and you’d be surprised how often founder-to-founder references come up in our team conversations.

Product margins! They will support every single thing you’ll want to do as you build, and it’s one of the things that investors and acquirors care about most. If you’re disciplined about this in the early days, you’ll have a massive leg up on other brands of your size as you manage your P&L toward profitability while also spending more on people, marketing, and everything else that comes with growth. The other thing is that product margins can be sticky and harder to improve when your product is working in the market, so if you start off on the right foot you’ll be in good shape. 

After that, it’s exciting to see you proving you can win in the channel you launched into with consistent velocities, with a vision for what channels come next. This doesn’t have to be totally set in stone, but you should be building toward it and ideally that’s part of what the raise unlocks. 

Ultimately, if you’re bringing on an outside investor, you should understand our business too. A partner like Humble is generally looking to exit an investment over a multi-year hold period, typically by selling to a larger private equity fund or a strategic acquiror. For that to happen, ask yourself how big you would need to be by then, what the margins and channel mix would look like, what team you would need, and which investor can take you there. Then, spend the next twelve months building to that conversation. 

If putting someone on your cap table is like getting married, then the process of raising money is like dating. It can be long and time-consuming, but it’s about building relationships and getting to find the right match for you. So, get your data in line early, make sure the business continues to perform, and fix the boring things now, then get out there! 

If I had to pick a theme, it’s that fragrance and color can become the biggest sources of new consumers in beauty. We’ve all spent the last few years underwriting function, and I think the next wave of new consumers walks in through the categories that are mostly about how something makes you feel as that functional layer becomes table stakes.  

We’ve been seeing this in fragrance for the past few years, but Gen Z men provide an interesting case study. They are building real routines, and most of them come in through scent (speaking from experience with my Gen Z younger brother…hi Ty). No single brand owns this consumer yet, and because traditional retail doesn’t reach them as easily, especially at higher price points, Amazon and TikTok Shop are the dominant channels for discovery and shopping now. Whoever builds specifically for that consumer, in those channels, has room to run. 

Color is the other one. Consumer dollars will always find their way to color brands, but this time the winners will be built on skincare-grade formulation and hybrid products rather than trend palettes – a color product that earns its place because of what it does for your skin (or where it sits in the routine to amplify the next step or simplify the whole thing), not because of a shade drop. Both of these steps are where new consumers often start, and I think that’s where the next generation of scale can get built. 

Now that GLP-1s have reset how people think about their health, I believe broader consumer trends will keep moving toward general wellness and longevity. A decade from now the routine itself will look different: fewer steps, fewer products, and no meaningful line between beauty, wellness, nutrition, and medicine. Underneath that, ingredient and biotech innovation is moving from labs to our routines faster and faster, and brands that own IP or exclusivity on an active will have real durability. 

At the same time, we’re all using AI far more – while it’s a powerful tool for data analysis, often consumers are using it for shopping decisions. This accelerates speed to market and changes which products spike in the first place. Now, when consumers ask their assistants what to buy, the search is optimized for real evidence and a clear ingredient story even more than vibes, and it’s global by default.

I’m excited to see everyone in LA! Mostly, I want to hear what people are actually using morning to night in their routines, and what’s surprised or excited them most in beauty this past year. 

From retailers, I want to know what’s working on shelf versus online (since those two don’t always match) and what they’re looking for now. From founders I want to hear about what’s hard, what their founder friends are saying, what makes them nervous about raising, and how investors can (and should) be more helpful. From my investor friends, I always leave with the best scoop on what just launched and what’s coming soon. 

On my end, I’m always happy to trade notes and see where we could be helpful. The Emerging Brand Spotlight is one of my favorite parts of the whole event. And ten years in is a real milestone, so I want to hear what people think about the ten to come!

Disclosures 

The views expressed are those of the author as of the date of publication and are subject to change without notice. They do not necessarily reflect the views of Humble Growth or its affiliates. Nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. 

This material is not an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any interest in any fund or other investment vehicle managed by Humble Growth. Any such offer would be made only pursuant to definitive offering documents. 

References to specific portfolio companies are illustrative only, do not represent all investments made by Humble Growth, and should not be construed as a recommendation. It should not be assumed that any investment discussed was or will be profitable. Past performance is not indicative of, and is no guarantee of, future results. 

One theme runs throughout Benjaafar’s outlook: relationships increasingly sit behind commercial growth. 

For investors, community can provide an early indication of product-market fit before wider retail expansion. For brands, social platforms can provide an immediate feedback loop between consumers and new launches. And when that relationship translates commercially, Benjaafar says the impact can be seen in lower acquisition costs, stronger repeat purchase, faster adoption of new launches and improved early retail sell-through.  

The channels themselves are changing too. As Benjaafar puts it, social now runs across the omnichannel journey and is increasingly “a storefront in its own right,” with TikTok Shop operating as a meaningful revenue-generating sales channel rather than simply a place for product discovery.  

These connections between creators and consumers, community and commerce, digital discovery and physical retail, brands and the partners that help them scale will continue to shape the conversations across the Beauty Connect community. 

Sirine Benjaafar joins Beauty Connect LA 2026 this October as a member of the Investor Advisory Board, where she’ll connect with founders, retailers and fellow investors and help identify the emerging brands attracting attention through this year’s Emerging Brand Spotlight.  

Join the Beauty Connect community in Los Angeles, October 28-30, 2026, to build the relationships behind beauty’s next phase of growth.