If Stormi Steele and Joey Shamah are any indication, there’s no wrong channel to launch in.
Both founder-influencer Steele, of Canvas Beauty, and AS Beauty founder Shamah, who also founded E.l.f. Beauty, have ably harnessed the opportunities to grow a brand digitally. At the 2025 WWD Beauty CEO Summit on May 8, the duo outlined how they’ve built burgeoning businesses — and reestablished legacy brands — as early adopters to social shopping, and where they’re eyeing the opportunities next.
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“We follow our customer, we built a d-to-c site, we drove engagement through Meta and other channels, and we applied the same tactics to TikTok. Over 70 percent of our customers on TikTok are over 45 and over 55 percent of our customers on TikTok are over 55,” Shamah said of Laura Geller, which sits aside Bliss and Cover FX in his portfolio.
“One of our core tenets is ‘rinse and repeat,’ not everything is the same shape and size but we’ve been finding the spots, the angles, the hooks, the engagement and the product. Once those stars are aligned, we lean in on them,” Shamah continued.
For her part, Steele was on a near-vertical trajectory with her brand in TikTok’s early days. “I launched Canvas Beauty in 2018, I was a one-person show, I built my website from scratch and made products in my kitchen,” she said. “My very first year in business we did about a million dollars in sales. It was just me. By 2020, we went viral.”
From there, Steele went on to do $20 million in sales that year. “People in business say you don’t want to grow too fast, and I didn’t know what that means until everything crashed in 2022. I almost lost my business,” she continued. “I got on TikTok Shop in 2023, I made a video in front of a whiteboard. We sold over 2 million units in 15 months.”
Steele was an early arriver to TikTok Shop, and built her core audience on the platform. “They resonate with our story. I’ve always been very transparent,” she said. “I’ve leaned into being a face-forward founder.”
For Steele, the longer the livestream, the better. She was the first to have a million-dollar livestream. “Longer livestreams were the thing,” she said. “I lean into personal experiences and storytelling.”
Shamah thinks there’s even more gold to be struck. “The current channels are very underdeveloped,” he said. “AI obviously plays a part, we grow with our customers, we understand our marketing and who we’re bringing to the sites. ‘Digital-first’ is going to continue, and we’re going to always test and learn.”
For him, agility is the imperative. “We’re a very nimble organization and we strip away complexity,” he said. “International — TikTok U.K. is something we’re looking at in the very near future and continuing to find success on our digital sites. That’s where we’ll continue to follow, both in terms of markets and product, digitally.”
Steele is also taking her brand to the U.K. via TikTok Shop. Her playbook has evolved as the platform has. “In 2025, we’ve transcended beyond buying products. Now, people buy people, especially when there’s a face to the brand. Now, leverage the affiliate marketing and don’t let affiliates run with their own messaging. Let them know who your brand is.”
Shamah sees the new frontier on already established platforms. “Instagram is going to continue to develop and take a lot of the ease that TikTok Shop has,” he said. “We have a major focus on Amazon, how we can be more beta testers with them as well.”
Conversely, Steele is looking at Twitch. “It’s going to have a powerful impact on the way we consume in the future. I’ve seen people have a lot of success,” she said. “Once you garner a fanbase who follows you, you can convert them into customers.”