Landing a retail account is the easy part. By the time most brands realize they weren't ready, the chargebacks have already started. This session covers the real operational and financial requirements of a wholesale launch and what makes a mass launch fundamentally different from a specialty one.

Investors want 65% to 80% gross margins. Retail demands at least 10x COGS to MSRP. This session examines how to calculate, benchmark, and actually improve your cost structure at every stage of growth and why the savings are harder to hold onto than most founders expect.

Most beauty brands spend between 20% and 50% of revenue on marketing. Rhode spent 11% and achieved a 9X return. This session examines the real economics of influencer programming at every stage of brand growth: how much to spend, when to overspend and how micro and affiliate models actually drive results.

Every brand is built on a core belief. The question is what happens when you've proven it and need to decide what's next. Category expansion is one of the highest-stakes decisions a beauty brand can make: capital intensive, market intensive, and brand intensive all at once. This session examines how the brands that get it right knew when to move, what rationale held up under pressure, and how to grow without breaking what made the core business work.