At first glance, Madison Taylor looks like your normal 14-year-old. The high-school freshman is a self-described “beauty product junkie” who obsesses over the latest in nails, makeup, hair, and skin. She spends her spare time scouring social media, especially TikTok, for the latest trending or viral videos.
Peel back another layer, however, and another side of Madison is revealed: an ambitious, Generation Z-fueled Brown girl-boss who serves as Chief Experience Officer of Taylor Beauty Products, a company that sells scented lotions that she co-founded in 2019 with her father Bryan Taylor—a successful corporate executive and serial entrepreneur—and mother Ylorie Taylor, a seasoned beauty C-suite executive. Ylorie currently serves as Vice President of Marketing for multimillion-dollar haircare brand EDEN BodyWorks—founded by Jasmine Lawrence, another teen entrepreneur.
With the combination of Bryan’s business pedigree and Ylorie’s strategic marketing expertise in beauty for scaling teenpreneur-led businesses, Taylor Beauty is poised to be another niche beauty brand success. The trio spoke to READY to BEAUTY about how they plan to make this a reality.
The genesis for Taylor Beauty Products began during a family trip to St. Maarten when Madison came up with the idea of creating her own shea-butter–based lotions, for herself. But, parental influence (or foresight into the future) kicked in. “Being an entrepreneur … I had that burn in me. I saw it in Madison. We began to think about how to turn this great idea into an opportunity where you can love what you do every day and still make money,” says Bryan.
The ingredients for success were there, too. At the table sat “sales, beauty operations, and the dreamer bringing the idea,” Bryan notes. With approval from Madison, the family set out to create a plan for the execution of the idea. “We want to make sure Madison is not just the face of the brand. We include her in everything and all decisions and even have conversations about finances and what P&L looks like. She is learning every part of the business,” says Bryan.
The first step to launching involved creating the masterbrand marketing and distribution strategy. As Chief Experience Officer, Madison took on a research and development role, coming up with unique “flavors” for the brand’s first product—travel-sized body lotions. Bryan stepped in as Chief Operations Officer, helping to run finances, sales, and logistics. Launching with travel-sized units was a strategic move that allowed the family to create a “proof of concept” and mitigate lower production costs.
Using her experience from working with Black, women-led beauty brands, Ylorie knew maximizing exposure during the brand’s launch event was crucial for future success. She helped cement the family’s decision to debut at Curlfest, the world’s largest natural-beauty festival held annually in Brooklyn, New York. The team worked around the clock for two weeks setting up an e-commerce site, working with manufacturers and production in order to be ready to sample a crowd of up to 25,000. Curlfest ended up being a major “learning experience” and success for Madison, leading to the brand’s first press feature, a write-up in Essence magazine, which helped lead to an influx of e-commerce sales.
The onset of COVID-19 caused the Taylor Beauty team to shift from their initial customer acquisition strategy and explore new avenues for growth. “Pivoting during the pandemic to strictly an online-based business (no events or in-person opportunities to introduce or sell the products) allowed us to expand to more channels for marketing such as digital and social advertising,” explains Bryan. Ylorie focused on ramping up the brand’s public relations and outreach efforts, thinking of innovative ways to drive sales and brand awareness. “It’s a continuing challenge to remain relevant during the pandemic,” says Bryan. It’s also a reminder that even the best-intended business plans may need to change in order to account for unintended economic disruptions to social buying habits.
Taylor Beauty plans to launch full-size units of top-selling flavors in an effort to ready the brand for retail distribution. Launching with travel-sized lotions allowed the brand to analyze product demand. Now, armed with customer feedback and sales data, the team believes that retail is possible in another year. The pathway to retail distribution, however, may come from leveraging retail e-commerce platforms. “There are steps to getting shelf presence … retailers have dot com sites that give us a chance to ‘test’ the viability of our product to their consumer audience,” explains Bryan. He believes this pathway may be more flexible and a “low point of entry” for the indie brand. “We have some retailers in mind where we think the brand would fit well, but we won’t rule out any potential partnerships where we can get the support needed to sustain a new brand at retail.”
One of the biggest lessons that Madison has learned is that it is possible to be both a beauty founder and have varying life interests. “Sometimes I have to label products in the middle of the day, package up orders, do interviews, photo shoots, and make videos for social media … my parents help me with shipping, finances, and all other things I don’t know.” Madison trusts her parents’ ability to help her scale a strong, long-lasting company. Both Bryan and Ylorie candidly admit, “We all work for her! This is Madison’s dream. Without that we wouldn’t be here right now.”
Madison looks up to Jasmine Lawrence, founder of EDEN BodyWorks (run by Ylorie) as an example of a kidpreneur, like herself, who went on to have a thriving business and fulfilling post-college career in STEM. “I want to pursue other things like marine biology too. But I know I could also run Taylor Beauty as well.” Allowing one’s child the space to evolve independently is something Ylorie and Bryan genuinely encourage. “There’s opportunity for her to be multifaceted … we can always hire people for our weaknesses or who have amazing talent and can make us stronger. It’s not meant for her to do it all by herself,” states Ylorie.
Ultimately, the family hopes to be a fully omni-channel brand that can be found in the homes of families nationwide. “If that happens on amazon.com or in a brick-and-mortar, or even simply on taylorbeautyproducts.com, we’ve achieved our goals,” notes Bryan. Madison hopes to expand into new fun flavors and introduce body washes into the brand’s product assortment this year, while Ylorie thinks trying out a subscription-based model could prove fruitful for the 13- to 24-year-old market.
With Generation Z said to be changing the face of entrepreneurship, it is important to take notice of brands like Taylor Beauty that are changing the pathway to retail narrative and helping to usher forth a new breed of business owners. Far more than just a “flavor generator,” Madison’s parents hope that one day she will be “running it all”—if it’s still her dream.
