How twin sisters with no background in beauty launched bellabox - Women's Agenda

How twin sisters with no background in beauty launched bellabox

Non-identical twin sisters Emily and Sarah Hamilton always knew they wanted to start a business together – they’d even established a joint company name as part of a year 10 school project.

The problem was deciding what to do. And dealing with the small issue that as teenagers, they didn’t particularly get along.

“We still fight,” one half of bellabox, Sarah Hamilton, tells Women’s Agenda, explaining that it took until their early twenties before they became friends. “But it’s actually good being in business with your sister because you can be so honest with each other. We do respect each other’s various skill sets.”

After working on opposite sides of the world – Sarah in New York and Emily in Singapore – Emily finally came up with an idea based on her dislike for crowded shopping malls and keen interest in e-commerce that both sisters believed could work: an online beauty subscription service, delivering monthly boxes of beauty samples and products to subscribers in Singapore and Australia.

Fifteen months after bellabox sent its first beauty box in October 2011, the pair have secured a user base in the “tens of thousands”, according to Sarah who wouldn’t reveal specific subscriber numbers. They have partnered with 200 global beauty brands, and just last week secured $1.3 million in investor funding.

It’s not bad considering the siblings had no background or contacts in beauty before launching. However, it helped that both had gained high-level management experience in media and marketing companies. Sarah was the general manager of Spin Magazine in New York before taking on the new business, while Emily worked as the managing director of Teracomm Asia Pacific, a company she co-founded in 2008 (and the company responsible for the Crazy Frog ringtone).

They quickly learned to respect each other’s key business skills and hired staff to fill the knowledge gaps between them. Knowing the business would only be as good as the quality of beauty brands they could partner with, they hired four brand managers (two in Australia and two in Singapore) in order to establish the necessary contacts.

After a period of self-funding the business, the sisters started working with Yes To Carrots skincare co-founder Lance Kalish and Elevation Capital partner Trevor Folsom to secure investor funding. Folsom said he was instantly impressed by the pair’s enthusiasm, motivation and experience, as well as the number of quality beauty brands they’d secured in a tight timeframe.

Sarah says the key was to ensure they secured investors who fit. “What Lance [Kalish] offered was really around putting a consortium together that would bring partners in,” she says. “He’s been able to bring us contacts in logistics, marketing and beauty.” The siblings plan to use their first round of funding to broaden the depth of the management team and raise the profile of bellabox across the region.

While the pair plans to branch out from Singapore and Australia, they’re tight-lipped on which locations they hope to conquer first. “We want to do the right markets. We have a good hunch,” says Sarah.

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