Diarrha Ndiaye has a résumé that reads like a beauty aficionado’s dream tour—she’s worked at Sephora, L’Oréal Paris, Temptu, and Glossier. She took what she learned while working at these brands and launched her own beauty empire, Ami Colé. Her give attention to beauty basics for those with melanin-rich skin was an easy success, garnering her awards corresponding to the 2021 Beauty Independent Beacon Award for Best Cosmetics Product Launch.
She sits down with the Shopify Masters podcast to share her journey and to detail the marketing magic she learned while working at among the most influential beauty brands of the past 50 years.
Seeing a spot in the sweetness landscape
After stints on the sales floor at Sephora and afterward the social and product teams for L’Oréal Paris, Temptu, and Glossier, the Senegalese-born founder from Harlem desired to create beauty basics for melanin-rich skin.
Diarrha knew there was demand for vegan, non-toxic beauty basics for people like herself. With this data, Ami Colé launched with three products that became almost easy hits: a baobab seed-powered Light-Catching Highlighter, a Skin-Enhancing Tint, and a Lip Treatment Oil.
She knew she had a winning formula after receiving the Beacon Award and garnering coverage in Vogue, in addition to shelf space at Sephora. “Creating the brand to have that orange box, have the ability to face out on black floors … it was about sparking curiosity and meeting a deeply felt need [by an audience of Black and brown people].” Make your products stand out and design your formulas and packaging to go against the standard offerings already in the marketplace.
Embracing data for product development
In the sweetness industry, where intuition often guides product development, Diarrha’s approach to constructing her brand stands out for its reliance on data. Her tenure at L’Oréal, where data analytics shaped major marketing and product decisions, left an enduring impression she carried into her entrepreneurial journey. “L’Oréal was very data-centric … decisions were really baked in pattern recognition,” Diarrha explained. This exposure to high-level data analytics from NPD and Nielsen demonstrated how vital a majority of these insights may very well be in crafting products that not only meet but anticipate customer needs.
Translating corporate technique to startup agility
Diarrha knew she wanted a data-informed approach to her product offerings, but access to the vast resources of a worldwide conglomerate like L’Oréal wasn’t inside her budget. As a substitute, she used social media, a more accessible yet equally insights-rich environment, to reinforce what she saw via her Google Analytics data. By engaging directly with potential customers through platforms like Instagram, she conducted informal yet insightful market research. “I interviewed over 400 people … to essentially understand what they wanted,” she says, highlighting her methodical approach to gathering actionable data.
Crafting products based on demand
The insights gained from social media conversations directly influenced Ami Colé’s product development. Diarrha was in a position to discover gaps available in the market for her demographic and develop the on a regular basis products her community was actively in search of.
This strategy ensured the brand’s offerings were well-received, and it built a foundation of trust and loyalty amongst her customers. “This wasn’t nearly selling a product; it was about creating something that actually served the community,” Diarrha says.
Launching a brand involves greater than just having an ideal product; it requires understanding the market. For aspiring entrepreneurs, Diarrha’s data-driven strategy underscores the importance of consumer insights in developing a product that resonates together with your target market. Intuition and experience told Diarrha she was filling a necessity; data and customer feedback backed that up. This approach minimizes risks and maximizes the potential for achievement, especially in industries as competitive as beauty.
To learn more about Diarrha’s origin story and the way she was in a position to discover and reply to a market gap, hearken to the Shopify Masters podcast.
