Traction tails tracking.
Top beauty startups don’t just measure what’s happening – they track why it’s happening. After working with dozens of early-stage beauty brands, I’ve seen 5 core drivers separate noise from momentum:
1. Acquisition
“Your beauty startup has to acquire a growing number of new consumers each period.”
Insights
Stage –
At every subsequent stage of growth, acquisition must grow faster.
Chasm –
Between two consequent growth stages, you need to jump over a chasm.
Cost Increase –
It gets more expensive to acquire new consumers as you move from early stage to growth stage as you compete with bigger players for the same pool.
Biggest Growth Driver –
Out of all 3 growth engines, acquisition usually is the biggest during early & growth stages.
2. Loyalty
“Loyalty ($ value) is the ultimate validation for delivering the desired results by solving the right problem.“
Insights
Retention Percentage –
Ideally, your retention must be close to >=50% but 30% is the bare minimum.
Cohorts –
You must measure loyalty by acquisition cohort and track the progress in $ value & % retention.
Beyond Repeat Purchase ($ value) –
Loyalty is not just repeat purchase but the $ value of all the retained consumers of a cohort.
The Most Important Growth Driver –
There aren’t any tricks to manufacture loyalty but the effectiveness of your solution in solving the consumer problem.
3. Advocacy
“Advocacy, one of the 3 growth engines, is the most ignored growth engine and it delivers both 6X profitable super fans & feeds the funnel back for acquisition.”
Insights
Advocacy Percentage –
Ideally, advocacy (word of mouth) should contribute >=30% of new consumers.
Who –
Your advocates (potential) are most motivated by the problem you solve and are 6X more profitable vs. your average consumer, since they buy most frequently, with highest number of SKUs, and the highest dollar value ($), and refer new consumers.
Beyond Loyalty –
Advocates are beyond top tier loyal consumers since they proactively refer new consumers to your brand.
The Most Overlooked Growth Driver –
Advocacy (word of mouth) anyway happens for every brand, but is seldom focused on, as a 3rd growth engine.
4. Financials
“The last thing you need is sacrifice years of your life, on your beauty startup, only to run out of cash & be stranded before you touchdown or, even worse, never realise the winnings (profits).“
Insights
Cash Flow –
If you cannot pay your expenses and people, you stop existing.
Margins –
As you move along the consumer adoption curve, margins increasingly matter more.
Consumer/Segment/Campaign/Channel Profitability –
For a startup, ensure that every consumer, segment, campaign & channel is profitable over a period.
The Most Critical Growth & Sustainability Driver –
Beyond paying expenses, growth sucks cash and without profit, you are left with nothing to show for your efforts.
5. Team
“Before AI takes over, execution solely depends on a startup’s team.”
Insights
The Big Picture –
Are they clear, aligned and motivated by your why, values and your strategy?
Efficiency and Effectiveness? –
As a team, they must get more efficient and effective
Key Result Areas –
Do they have one-pagers on their goals and key milestones?
Market Value –
Their market value should continuously increase by working on your startup
Next Steps....
Founder-Pick 3-5 top metrics from each of the 5 areas, track & share on the startup dashboard!
Leaders-Track most relevant metrics for your function contributing to the Startup Dashboard.
Individuals-Track most relevant metrics for your role contributing to the Function & Startup Dashboard.
Summary
Top beauty startups don’t just track outcomes, they measure what drives them.
Across acquisition, loyalty, advocacy, financials, and team, 50+ focused metrics reveal what’s working, what’s stalling, and where to intervene.
These aren’t vanity numbers – they’re operating signals.
Track better, scale smarter.
Jump Accelerator: 70+ beauty brands impacted
Results-based, speed of sustainable scale for female founders
We will evaluate your fit with our 10X Growth Solutions or the Ultimate Scale Cohort.
For 10X Growth solutions, we look to partner with 1-2 startups/quarter and
for the Ultimate Scale Cohort 2-3 startups for 2026.
Limited slots and a rigorous evaluation of your scale up potential & readiness.