Case 49 — Rhode · Hailey Bieber · 2025

Your brand has never been in a store and is about to be. Do you sell it now, to a mass-market parent, before you know how the retail launch will go?

It is spring 2025 and your skincare brand is not yet three years old. It did $212 million of net sales in the last twelve months, every dollar of it through your own website, and its customer base more than doubled in that year. You have never sold through a store. You are planning your first retail launch, in Sephora across North America and the UK, before the end of the year. The brand is funded mostly by you, with a strategic partner, and has no venture investors pushing for an exit. Everyone in the industry knows the brand's appeal is tied to your face and your taste. e.l.f. Beauty, a public company known for cheap makeup and fast growth, offers $800 million at closing — $600 million in cash and $200 million in its own shares — plus up to $200 million more if the brand keeps growing over three years. You would stay as chief creative officer. You have said publicly that you would not sell for less than a billion.

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