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Local, global, national and non-commercial

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Entrepreneur and basic enterprise summary 

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Entrepreneur and basic enterprise summary 

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ENTREPRENEUR AND ENTERPRISE SUMMARY PAGES (1)

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Kids learn about the biography of entrepreneurs like Andrew Carnegie, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sam Walton, and Martha Stewart. People who have built businesses on hard work and risk.

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Aimee Connolly is an Irish entrepreneur and the founder of the makeup brand Sculpted by Aimee. She started her career as a makeup artist and used her experience to develop her own line of products

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After starting her business by saving €10,000 working as a makeup artist, Aimee Connolly's Sculpted brand now has a turnover of €22m ... but the determined entrepreneur has even greater ambitions, writes Ben Haugh

Aimee Connolly bursts into the lobby of Sculpted By Aimee headquarters in Dundrum, hunched over and holding a wet coat above her head.

The 31-year-old beauty entrepreneur curses the July downpour before composing herself and offering me a cup of tea.

"I've just come from Boots HQ," she says. "They had a celebration for us as we achieved number one in their mass cosmetics [sales], which is huge. We basically outnumbered Maybelline, Rimmel and L'Oréal.

"I think we take it for granted because we're in this hamster wheel of growth. But actually, it was such a significant moment. Like, I don't believe they've ever had an Irish beauty brand [in that position]."

Growth is an understatement. Sculpted By Aimee was founded by Connolly in 2016 after she saved up €10,000 by working as a freelance makeup artist.

Last year the company recorded a turnover of about €22m. According to its most recent accounts, it had after-tax profits of €2.1m in 2022 and accumulated profits of €6.6m.

Its staff count surpassed 90 this year.

The company opened stores on Belfast's Victoria Square and London's Carnaby Street last year, adding to its locations on Grafton Street in Dublin and Kildare Village. The shops, decked out in pink, also offer a range of makeup courses.

As we walk through the office's corridors, there is no mistaking what company operates here. Everything is a different shade of pink, from the plant pots to the cupboards. Slogans such as 'Beauty packed with goodness' are written on the walls.

Connolly, sporting a pink blazer, leads me to the kitchen where a pink Smeg kettle sits beside a pink Smeg toaster.

Greg, the company's senior supply chain manager, is shuffling around. One of a small number of men working in the office, he admits to being "outnumbered".

"We did do a Euros sweepstake, though," Connolly says defensively, before handing me tea in a pink Sculpted mug.

We sit down on pink chairs at a large shiny white table. Polaroids of the company's staff at events adorn
the walls. What would 18-year-old Aimee have thought if she was presented with a snapshot of the company in 2024, I ask.

"She would think, 'God, that's so cool'. But I also think there would be this inherent sense of, 'but of course that was going to happen'.

"Whether it was naivety or confidence or self-belief or just not thinking too far ahead, the whole concoction of the mix worked."

Launched when Connolly was just 22, the company's impressive rise makes more sense when you understand her inherent self-confidence.

"I come from a tiny family. I was an only child, just me and my mam, so that alone gives you this sense of grit. She provided for us her whole life.

"She was a working mom as well because she had to be, but she definitely had this insane 'I can do' attitude. That definitely drifts into your own psyche a little bit."

Connolly describes her upbringing in Ballinteer, south Dublin, as "totally privileged" but adds that "money wasn't flush".

Her mother, who worked in pharmaceuticals but now has a property business, was "badly hit" by the recession.

"I had to go work at 16. I was totally happy to do so and I'm thrilled that I did. I think I've always had this aversion to debt... like saving up [for] my first stereo or my first [ Volkswagen] Golf and the same for the business."

Connolly credits her work experience at Benefit Cosmetics, the US luxury brand owned by Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, for two weeks during transition year with setting her on this career path.

"I realised I loved dealing with people and selling products I was passionate about. I was your classic girly girl for makeup," she says.

She then landed a weekend job in Urban Decay, the US brand owned by L'Oréal, before moving to Mac Cosmetics, the Canadian makeup giant owned by Estée Lauder Companies.

After finishing school at Coláiste Íosagáin in Booterstown, she studied Commerce International at University College Dublin and started freelancing as a makeup artist.

"I would badger the TV3 crew about getting onto Xposé and doing screen tests. I spent three years working with customers, which is arguably the best thing that I ever did for my confidence, having to put yourself out there on a counter and try and sell things to all sorts of personalities."

When Connolly graduated in 2016, she had already been working in makeup for six years. She decided to build her own brand.

"The first thing I did when I finished my finals was google 'European cosmetic manufacturers'. I sent about 22 emails and got two responses, one said no and one said yes."

She travelled to the UK and created her first product, a trio palette for sculpting, using €10,000 in savings. Her big idea was to encourage women that less is more.

"This is in an era where people were wearing so much makeup, and Instagram-heavy makeup. I was really defying that by saying, 'you don't need 75 products, you only need five with a few simple tips and this is how you do it.'"

Connolly was not an 'influencer' at this stage and only had about 10,000 social media followers. She had to use old-fashioned tactics to get the brand noticed.

"I knew I wanted omnichannel. I don't know why, but I just had this sense of 'I want online and I want retail'. And so I said to myself, 'if I can get into the top five pharmacies then hopefully the independent pharmacies will look at what they're stocking and then approach me.'"

She drove around Dublin holding meetings and convinced the pharmacies to take a chance on her brand, then called Sculpted by Aimee Connolly. The surname was dropped two or three years later to "internationalise".

The products sold well and it was time to reorder, but Connolly was unhappy with their component quality.

"The company I was dealing with in the UK, I felt, weren't as professionally respectful to me, versus say another brand that they were dealing with, because I was a naive 22- or 23-year-old girl."

She flew to the UK again and threatened to end the business relationship if the quality didn't improve.

"Obviously to these guys, I had placed a tiny order and I was this tiny fish. I'm sure they weren't that worried at the time.

"But their response confirmed everything that I was feeling. It was like 'silly little girl' or something to that effect."

Connolly held back tears until she was out of the meeting, and decided never to work with the company again.

"But it was the best thing that ever happened to me so early on, because it forced me to go to a trade show in Italy where, by chance, I met our South Korean partner. I flew out to his factory in Seoul three weeks later.

"It's eight or nine years on now and they produce about 70% of our range still to this day. We have the most amazing relationship."

Connolly visits the factory two or three times per year and these trips feature heavily on her social media channels. But the entrepreneur denies it is all for show.

"I don't know the compounds, but I have a very good gut [feeling] about what will blend or what won't. They know when I come over for that week that I'll have the lab coat on [and will be] sitting there watching how they mix and [checking] what doesn't mix."

While Connolly insists that Sculpted does not sell 'white-label' products - generic products bought by brands who then add their label - she accepts that it's not always possible to innovate in such a saturated market.

"I push the originality factor and am always asking, 'how can we make this Sculpted?' But sometimes that's not right, because actually what's working is working."

Asked if she considers her brand's role in the pressure on women to look perfect, she replies "100%". She adds: "One of our biggest hashtags over the last few years has been #filterfreefaces and I think that's so important. We don't filter or Photoshop our images."

Connolly says the company's customers "skew older", which is a "surprise to people". Its core market is 25-44, but the "biggest segment" is 35-44.

In September 2022, Connolly opened her first shop on Grafton Street in Dublin. The pandemic was winding down, but the high street had not yet recovered.

"People thought I was mad," she says. "But I had such a strong gut [feeling] that experiential face-to-face [retailing] was going to come back even stronger than ever, and I was obviously proven right."

A branch in Kildare Village was next in July 2023, followed by openings in Belfast in September and London in November.

"The numbers were going in the right direction and also the units that became available were right," she says.

It was also a big year for Connolly personally, as she married long-term partner John Greene, who co-owns several Camile Thai franchises through Majestic Restaurants Ltd.

Seven hundred people attended the store opening in London, easing fears that the brand might not be sufficiently well known there. At the time, just one in ten of Connolly's social media followers were in the UK. That has since increased to one in four.

"I feel like we're in a really, really good place in the UK. You know, we have our flagship, we have the Boots distribution. We have a premium retailer opening up in September, and all the stars are aligning," she says.

When asked to name the premium retailer, Connolly seems unsure whether she can say, before revealing that Sculpted has landed a deal with Selfridges in Manchester and London to open in September.

"The plan is to keep growing every area of the business. There is a huge opportunity for the taking in the UK. We are only scratching the surface. All the while we are building the go-to-market plan for the US and that's the big dog."

Connolly wants to enter the US market in the first half of next year and says the company would ideally partner with Ulta Beauty or Sephora, the chain pharmacies.

"My ultimate plan for the next five to ten years is to be within the top ten beauty brands globally. I don't say that lightly. I know that's huge, but I so firmly believe that we can do that."

The company is aiming for a 50% increase this year on 2023's turnover of €22m. Retail accounts for half of sales, followed by 30% online and 20% in its flagship stores. But Connolly denies that she is motivated by money.

"I love the business. I love what I do. I feel really grateful that I get to do this. And I love the journey. It's taken me to wild places, meeting wild people doing wild things.

"I just want to see this brand achieve the full success that I think it should. And I don't have an exit plan. I'm not saying, 'right, in three years Aimee's off in the sunset on her yacht.' I have no intention to do that, and if I exited right now I'd just start another brand."

When pressed, Connolly accepts that she may exit the business at some stage in the future. How would she spend her time then, if not on an expensive yacht?

"I think I will always stay super-interested in business. So when I look at the proper future, I'd love to be a consultant or work at something that helps businesses to grow."

But for now, she's too busy building an empire to think too hard about that.
For more on this interview pick up a copy of Business Plus Magazine on sale now Photo: Aimee Connolly. Fran Veale

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How Aimee Connolly turned €10,000 savings into a multimillion-euro brand

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Aimee Connolly bursts into the lobby of Sculpted By Aimee headquarters in Dundrum, hunched over and holding a wet coat above her head.

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Ever wondered how Steve Jobs was so successful? Discover the answers in this comprehensive overview of his life, career and death.

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Award winning blogger turned businesswoman, Suzanne Jackson, is the brains behind one of Ireland's leading fashion, beauty and lifestyle blogs SoSueMe.ie. She is also the founder and CEO of the bestselling beauty brand, SOSUbySJ.

The blogging juggernaut that is SoSueMe.ie was created back in 2010, and its rapid success to date has been nothing short of hugely impressive.

The Sunday Independent recently compared Suzanne's influence to that of Kate Middleton, and she is currently listed on the official SERMO Index, for the second year running, as the number one Irish influencer in the world. She is also the only Irish influencer in the top 16 most influential bloggers globally.

The SoSueMe Facebook page alone has over 300,000 followers and a weekly reach of over 5+ million. Sue's Instagram account has over 230,000 followers and has hit over 9 million impressions per week. She is also one of Ireland's top Snapchatters (sosueme_ie). Sue has worked with a wide variety of global brands, such as, Pretty Little Thing, Universal, Lancome, Primark, Skechers, Lipsy, L'Oreal, CLUSE Watches, Rimmel, Missguided, Juicy Couture, Sure Deodorant, Dovocare, Littlewoods, Crownbrush UK, Wella Haircare, Juicy Couture, and many more.

Suzanne is currently an ambassador for Victoria's Secret.

In 2017, Sue was voted by the public as Ireland's Most Stylish Woman as part of the prestigious VIP Style Awards.

Following on from her success in blogging, Suzanne was inspired to create the beauty brand, SOSU by Suzanne Jackson. The brand features a wide range of game changing beauty products all of which were created from scratch. Some products have been over a year in the making; her luxury tan Dripping Gold being one such product. It too has gone on to enjoy massive success.

A number of products created by Suzanne sold out within minutes, and as a result of this success, her SOSU by Suzanne Jackson brand is now being stocked by major retailers such as Primark (in Ireland, Northern Ireland and in the UK), as well as online global fashion heavyweights, Beauty Bay, Pretty Little Thing, Boohoo.com, and falseeyelashes.com.

SOSU by Suzanne Jackson is also stocked in France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, and Estonia.

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Award winning blogger turned businesswoman, Suzanne Jackson, is the brains behind one of Ireland's leading fashion, beauty and lifestyle blogs SoSueMe.ie. She is also the founder and CEO of the bestselling beauty brand, SOSUbySJ. The blogging juggernaut that is SoSueMe.ie was created back in 2010, and its rapid success to date has been nothing short of hugely impressive.

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Elon Musk is a South African-born American entrepreneur. He is the founder of Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX and more. Know more about him here!