KATE MORRIS - ADORE BEAUTY
ON WHY SHE SOLD 60% OF HER BUSINESS TO PRIVATE EQUITY
How do you build a successful business before the market is truly ready?
Kate Morris is the founder of Adore Beauty, the online beauty retailer she launched in 1999 at the ripe old age of 21.
It took almost a decade for Adore Beauty to gain momentum and for customers to become comfortable with purchasing their beauty products online. Lucky for Kate she persisted, because 20 years on, Adore Beauty stocks over 200 brands and is forecast in 2020 to turn over $100 million in revenue.
We spoke about:
How she built out a team in the beginning, and what tasks she outsourced first
How Adore Beauty acquires new customers through focusing on content marketing
Why she’s decided to invest heavily in AI technology
The key ingredients to a killer pitch
Why she decided to sell 60% of her stake in the business to private equity in 2019
Dealing with serious cash flow issues as recent as 2014, and the tactics she used to generate enough funds to make the following week’s payroll
THE BITS YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS
“My superpower is my ability to persuade, and get people across the line.”
“Always remember, when people say no to you, often times they are saying ‘I don’t trust you enough to say yes yet.”
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