The Rise of Luxury Indie Brands

In another Entrepreneur Indie-Brand episode of the Reboot Chronicles, I invited KYPRIS Founder  Chase Polan to discuss emerging luxury in the booming global skin care market.

As many know, skincare is one of the fastest-growing segments within the beauty industry with high demand for quality product formulations and self-care. According to the NDP Group, skincare sales within 2020 have risen $1.4 billion and are expected to continue growing by 2023, with an estimated 3.5% annual increase reaching $180 billion in global spend by 2024. 

With over 15 years of entrepreneurial experience, Chase proves to be a natural-born leader as she has founded two of her own companies. The first being the Beautiful Minds Group, founded in 2005, a comprehensive educational consulting and support program for students K-12 grade and college; the program provides a new approach to better educate students. Also, she founded KYPRIS, a high-performance luxury skincare line of organic and sustainably sourced ingredients to ensure a unique and safer beauty experience for consumers. In creating the brand, she saw a niche in the market for a safe and quality ingredient skincare line.

Breaking Barriers

With buzzwords like “natural," "clean" and "non-toxic" trending, they are increasingly being used by brands to entice consumers—but are they all authentic? Navigating through such a saturated market, filled with these claims, is often difficult, especially for consumers who are not well-versed. Talking with Chase, I learned her thoughtful approach with KYPRIS. She instilled trust within her clientele base by creating a safe space to educate and provide superior sourced ingredients—going beyond the industry natural standards. The strategy is paying off and momentum is building, with the newly restructured and energized Nieman Marcus adding KYPRIS to their ecommerce lineup.

Falling Cactus

Sustainability and an ethically sourced supply-chain play heavily into KYPRIS. One brand ingredient, prickly pear (yes it exists), is locally sourced through a practice known as wildcrafting, aka the practice of going into the wild and strategically collecting an ingredient. Chase mentions the challenges that go hand in hand as there is a high risk, but is known for being an ethical and beautiful practice.

The Pillars of Growth and Innovation

The growth and innovation process for any brand is crucial; KYPRIS has a great guide to the seven core pillars they stand by. There should be no harm; this is really the brand's overarching motto they use to guide innovation—I expect others will follow.

What’s an Indie-Brand To Do

For all the entrepreneurs out there, it is important to focus on where the opportunity lies, especially in today's current climate. Although the market seems saturated, and retail stores and sites looking more like a “beauty-jungle”—there is still much room for innovation. One Indie-brand tip: rather than only hopping on the current trend bandwagon, that are likely to be short-lived, entrepreneurs should seek to develop out-of-the-box ideas to revolutionize the market—like in the areas of technology and personalization. Whatever you decide, do it authentically well.