Maesa is looking for the next Being Frenshe and Kristin Ess.
Courtesy of Maesa
Maesa Magic, a beauty brand incubator, is looking for three founders of young businessses that are in need of guidance and a financial shot in the arm. Winners will receive $35,000 of no-strings-attached funding. Applications opened earlier this month for the 2027 installment with mentors and program highlights announced. The last day for submitting an application is August 7.
Maesa, which is known for growing brands such as Kristin Ess Hair and Being Frenshe, started the program in 2023. To date, the Maesa Magic Incubator has awarded $315,000 in funding and supported nine founders in their quest to build their brands and the future of beauty and wellness.
In addition to mentorship – the roster of advisors includes Brian Bordainick of Starface, Brian Sugar of Popsugar, Olamide Olowe of Topicals, Shai Eisenman, of Bubble, and Tomi Talabi, The Black Beauty Club – makers will attend the executive education program, “Winning the Agentic Consumer,” at Emerson University and hosted at the Harvard University Faculty Club.
“We customize the program to each individual,” said Piyush Jain, CEO of Maesa. “It’s a very hands on and we want to do it justice and make sure those who join us get the best out of the program, so we keep it at three. One of the many ways in which the founders are special is they started their brands based on personal experiences and they’re building solutions for problems they’ve personally lived. That creates a level of authenticity.”
What Maesa looks for in a founder is simple. “For us, the main thing is the mindset,” Jain said. “Starting a beauty brand is fairly easy, but making a brand thrive and be successful is very hard. We ask founders why they want to be an entrepreneur and create their brand. They have to have passion, resilience and conviction, which will allow them to survive both easy times and hard times. Also, they have to have the conviction that their brand deserves to live and they’re willing to fight for it.”
The program, now in its fourth year, was created to support beauty and wellness entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities and designed for beauty and wellness brands generating less than $1 million in annual sales. The incubator is open to founders who identify as women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, differently abled, seniors, aged 65-plus, and/or from low-income backgrounds.
The way the program works is founders identify a major and minor area that they want help with. Perhaps the visual identity isn’t bringing the idea of the brand to life or a founder is having trouble making the financials work. “Based on that, we link them up with internal teams,” said Jain. “If their major area is design, we link them up with the design studio. If their minor area is retail distribution, we link them up with the sales team.”
Brands should be developed and products should be on the market and selling. That shows that the founders are committed to their ideas, Jain said. “The number of applications we received has been phenomenal,” he added. “One of the main sources for us has been alumni from previous cohorts. They really enjoyed the program and came back to us and told us that the program helped their ideas become better.”
Topicals’ Olowe, an alumna of Maesa Magic Incubator, said she was mentored at the start of her beauty career at Shea Moisture. “It shaped how I think about grassroots marketing, fundraising, retail strategy and social impact,” she said. “I love being an advisor because it brings me back to the early scrappy days of Topicals and keeps me in touch with marketing opportunities and challenges. This helps me remain sharp as I build Topicals.”