Hi Business Besties. Here’s what we’re covering today.

• Resource roundup

• Inside the Chillhouse x Kiss Beauty Group acquisition deal

• Business Bestie schedule: Join mentor calls with the founders of Dissh, Perelel, and First

• Skim the headlines

• New on the show: The ecomm expert behind SET Active, Halfdays, Tower28 and Facile

  **Reminder** you can now watch the show on Youtube

• Vogue’s new funding tracker lets you follow a list of the most interesting investment and M&A activity in fashion and beauty. 🔗Tell me more

• If you want to get better at creating with AI, tap into this free prompt library from Amazon’s AWS Activate startup program. It will give you prompts to copy/paste and tell AI tools exactly what you want to build. 🔗Tell me more

• Are you ISO investment-for-equity accelerators? Gener8tor has 2026 opportunities live on their site. 🔗Tell me more

• Apply to this $5,000 grant before applications close on Feb 28, 2026. 🔗Tell me more

Inside the Chillhouse x Kiss Acquisition Deal

I spoke with Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton last week right after her business Chillhouse was acquired by Kiss Beauty Group. She’s been building Chillhouse since 2017 and I’ve been following along since day one, like I know a lot of you have.

Success looks inevitable when you connect the dots backwards, but rarely feels that way when you’re building.

I asked Cyndi for tea on the deal, but also about the evolution of Chill Tips, her brand-defining press-on nail product. Chillhouse started as a bricks-and-mortar spa in NYC and it took until 2020, when Chill Tips launched, for the business to really take off.

Cyndi was building for years before even launching the product that defined her brand. There’s a lesson in that for all of us that I asked her to unpack—on how to make good decisions, predict the future, and know what your customers want.

How to find your hero product years after launch:

I asked Cyndi where the inspiration for Chill Tips came from—I’m interested in how we can all cultivate more moments of inspired action in our own careers and businesses. She had been thinking about a clear market gap for premium, salon-quality nail art press-ons for about a year when Covid hit. The macro environment shifted and the timing was perfect to create a product that would scale the Chillhouse nail experience from her bricks-and-mortar business into people’s homes.

She fast tracked the project and launched July 2020, the day Cyndi’s son was due to be born. The time was right and Chill Tips immediately found product-market fit: “Salons were still closed, so at home nail care was at a high. Demand for artificial nail kept increasing year over year, where polish was flatlining or declining. When we got a call from Urban Outfitters a couple of days into our launch, that’s when I knew. This was our home run product,” Cyndi told me.

Double down when you find a strategy that works:

The big unlock for Chill Tips came when Cyndi hired a wholesale strategist to get operations and sales decks in order, and scale the product into retailers. Today Chillhouse’s sales are about 80-85% via wholesale channels, with most of that business coming through Target.

Next came a senior fractional hire, and investment in PR to set the tone that Chillhouse is the leader and owner of the category, and to dominate SEO.

Learn to make better decisions:

Learning how to make good decisions is arguably the most valuable skill we can craft as business leaders, and Cyndi’s getting really good at it.

She made some big swings over the past decade. Cyndi closed a blog that was doing well to create The Chill Times, Chillhouse’s content site. At times she pivoted resources away from the spa concept towards launching consumer products. She doubled down on Chill Tips quickly after launch. When you connect the dots backwards, these are all good decisions, but they would have felt risky at the time.

Cyndi makes decisions by first testing ideas in small ways before making a hard pivot. But then, she doesn’t look back. “We’ve tested skincare, body care and other categories and we’ve even tested supplements via a partnership. And while they weren’t total flops, your sales don’t lie. If a certain product is taking off, that’s where you should focus your attention,” she said. 

Ignore distractions and focus on your core offering:

The moment Chillhouse moved away from distractions and focused on nail care is when the business took off. Eventually, when the brand is a true household name, she’ll explore lifestyle products again: “I think we were too early in thinking we were outwardly known as a lifestyle brand. We will be one someday, I have no doubt. But for now, nail care is the focus.”

Identify who you want to sell to:

The Kiss x Chillhouse deal took a year to close. If you want to sell your business like Cyndi, start by identifying exactly who you want to sell to. “We knew we wanted to stay on to really grow Chillhouse to its fullest potential so private equity was not an option for me. We knew selling to another brand, one we can learn from and grow with, was the best option for how we like to operate. Adam reached out to someone on the Kiss team without me even knowing and the rest is history.”

Business Bestie Member Schedule

Live mentor calls are available exclusively to Female Founder World paid subscribers. Members unlock access to group mentorship with culture-defining business leaders through live Q&A calls. Mentor calls are where this community comes together for off-the-record discussions that could never be published on the podcast. Sign up here for $12.99 per month.

Tuesday, Jan 20 at 4:00 PM ET - Mentor Call With Libby Leffler, First

Libby Leffler is building First, a tech platform making it simple to get a prenup. Ask her about scaling a tech startup and how to protect yourself and your assets in partnership.

Monday, Jan 26 at 4:00 PM ET - Mentor Call With Alex Taylor, Perelel

Alex Taylor is co-founder and co-CEO of supplement business Perelel Health. We’ll chat about how to build a category-defining brand, content strategy, and the true costs of ambition. Bring your questions and make sure you catch up on Alex’s episode of Female Founder World before the call.

Monday, Feb 2 at 6:00 PM ET - Mentor Call With Lucy Henry-Hicks, Dissh

Over the past few years Lucy Henry-Hicks became a CEO, a multi-millionaire, breadwinner, and mother (twice). She’s the founder and CEO of Dissh, the iconic fashion brand reportedly on track to hit $150 million in sales last year. Meet Lucy and ask her about building a legacy brand, ecommerce growth strategies and balancing ambition and motherhood. Watch her episode of Female Founder World before joining the call.

ACQUISITION: Kiss Beauty Group has acquired Chillhouse for an undisclosed sum. Chillhouse will continue to operate independent with Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton, founder and CEO of Chillhouse, staying on in her current role. The acquisition will help fund Chillhouse’s wholesale expansion into 1,100 CVS stores this February.

COMMUNITY MARKETING: We've been saying that community marketing is the new influencer marketing and this Olipop x Cocokind partnership proves it. The brands are forgoing the typical celeb or influencer press trip and instead teaming up on a trip for eight community members to Sonoma next month.

CELEB FOUNDERS: Paige Lorenze and Tommy Paul launched a foundation called Kids Outdoors to support access to sports with high barriers to entry like tennis and skiing.

FUNDING: Female Founders Fund closed its fourth fund, raising an additional $29 million to invest in women-led companies.

SOCIAL MEDIA: We’re all spending less time on social media. This Financial Times survey found that social media use peaked in 2022 and has been declining ever since.

ALIX EARLE: Alix Earle launched a new monthly YouTube series, “Get Real With Me,” that builds on her viral “Get Ready With Me” TikTok videos. In each episode Alix talks with a guest about beauty, pop culture, and “whatever else comes up along the way”.

Make 2026 The Year You Get Financially Hot

In 2026 I’m locking in and getting deep in the financial details of Female Founder World.

In earlier businesses I would tell myself the story that I’m “not good with numbers”. In reality it was a lazy excuse to not be fully across the financials of my business, and those businesses ended up closing.

You’re probably like me and didn’t go to business school. I have taught myself pretty much everything I know about building this business through hours of YouTube videos and podcasts. But when it comes to finances, I tapped out in the early days of entrepreneurship.

I used to overly outsource or skim over the topline information and hope for the best. Then one day I realized that’s not cute anymore. Ignoring your business finances is not an approach that will allow anyone to build a big, profitable company. 

I know a lot of you feel exactly the same way and want 2026 to be the year you feel financially confident.

That’s why we created a free business finance program with our partners at Mercury*. It’s called Cash Camp and is a free, three-part series covering everything from cash flow forecasting to how to communicate with investors.

Cash Camp is packed with the essential knowledge I know some of you have been ignoring. We’ve just made the entire series available to watch on demand for free, but only if you register at the link below.

*Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank.

The Woman Behind Your Favorite Brands Charges Thousands For This Advice

Halfdays, SET Active, Tower28, Dedcool, Facile—these brands all have one woman in common: Jhoanna Marissa. She’s the founder of Willa Creative, an agency creating brand-first social content and websites for culture-defining brands.

Jhoanna’s on the show this week sharing what’s working right now for your favorite brands, and the brand-building secrets she usually keeps just for her clients.

Jhoanna’s resource recommendations:

• Recharge for subscription

• Shopify for website

• TYB for community

• Tolstoy for shoppable UGC video

P.s. Female Founder World Summit is coming back for 2026 and I’m already planning your speaker lineup. Hit reply to let me know who you want to see on stage in New York this year. — Jasmine x