Today, beauty influencers are everywhere, sharing secret hacks and their latest go-to products. But in 2010, Luxy Hair was one of the first companies to use its YouTube channel as a platform for organically growing its brand.

After its founders, Alex and Mimi Ikonn, launched on YouTube, Luxy Hair took off, gaining more than 250,000 customers and three million subscribers before being acquired by a leader in the hair extension and lash enhancement industry.

Now, Alex and Mimi have set their sights on a new business, Intelligent Change. Ahead, learn how their approach helped them build multiple successful businesses and communities, and get tips for building your own.

  

3 expert tips for building an authentic brand

Alex and Mimi know how to strategize, market, and create community around their products, all while injecting meaningful stories into their messaging. These are their top takeaways from their experience with both brands.

1. Find an itch that needs scratching

Mimi wasn’t able to find the hair extensions she wanted for her wedding, and she assumed she wasn’t the only one experiencing this problem. She was right. “I’m a big believer in scratching your own itch,” Alex says.

The couple took the same approach when launching Intelligent Chance, a brand offering mindfulness tools, including The Five Minute Journal, a product born from Alex’s own quest to find a short-form way to practice intentional living.

2. Create a brand based on your authentic self

With the help of Mimi’s sister, Luxy Hair’s founders created YouTube videos based on the women’s genuine experience and love of hair extensions. “Here are these two young women with beautiful hair,” Alex says “They can create all this content [that excites them] that gives people real value.”

Alex finds the simplest way to convey the purpose behind your brand is to represent it yourself and be a part of the target audience. Approaching the brand and content development with passion and desire will help a business attract customers to the vision.

3. Develop evergreen content for your channel

“YouTube is probably one of the largest search engines in the world, and since it’s owned by Google, Google will feed search traffic into it,” Alex says. Basic content that answers popular search terms like how to braid hair or style Luxy Hair extensions became evergreen content for the brand. This type of content can also withstand trends and headlines, making it perfect to come back to.

Today, Alex is creating authentic, evergreen content with his new brand, Intelligent Change, focusing on affirmations and mental health topics anyone can relate to.

For the growth of any brand, Alex suggests leaning in to your authentic self and the needs you can fill, and continuing to promote content that delivers true value.

Tune in to the full Shopify Masters episode to hear about the process behind Luxy Hair’s acquisition, and how Alex is building Intelligent Change.