Introduction
Discover the inspiring journey of Lucy, a university student who turned a personal hair care solution into a $5 million a year business. Starting in her parents’ conservatory with just a few hundred pounds, Lucy leveraged the power of TikTok to create a viral sensation. This post breaks down her exact Q&A, revealing the strategies, challenges, and key decisions that taught her how to start a viral hair business that defies expectations. Learn how a public rejection on Dragon’s Den became the catalyst for massive growth and how you can apply her authentic marketing methods to your own brand.
Founder Success Story QnA
What is Hair Syrup?
So, Hair Syrup is a Tik Tok viral hair care brand and we basically sell a range of natural pre-wash hair oil treatments.
So, founded in 2020, 5 years later, how much revenue have you done so far?
Maybe like 15 mil. In 5 years? Yeah.
So, before you founded Hair Syrup, what were you doing at the time or prior to that?
So the way this all came about is I’d been using obviously not what we sell now but very similar kind of oil concoctions if you like. Yeah. I’d been using them on my own hair for maybe 18 months before this because I fried my hair off when I was a teenager cuz and then I went on a hair transformation journey and basically tried all this stuff didn’t work ended up making my own stuff did work. Yeah.
Before you went viral how did you come about the ingredients to make the hair? Like was you just randomly experimenting or there was some thought process behind it?
Well, when I look back, I used I was obviously at uni spending a lot of time on PubMed, Google Scholar, things like that. So, I actually used that quite a lot. Okay. So, I un again, I didn’t really realize what I was doing at the time, but I was researching every single thing that I was putting in there. But I did a lot of cross referencing. So, what’s on the market at the moment, what are the sort of popular ingredients?
How much did you need to get started? And what did that cost go towards?
\p>No more than a few hundred pounds. Oh, wow. For And I did what I did when I started it was you have to get your products tested, which I don’t know, I think it was like 150 quid to get the first one tested. Um, so that was the biggest expense. But my website that I made and built, it was like £3.99 a month. Oh, wow. Yeah. So, I was I was frugal.At what point did you realize you’ve outgrown the space that you’re in and you need to get somewhere bigger?
So, the space I started in was a conservatory, and my mom and dad just wanted me out. Like, they never really they never wanted me to start the business cuz they were really worried that it was going to distract me from my degree. Where the when we decided, okay, it’s time to move on um and actually find somewhere was when I had my first retailer approach me. Nice.
From that building, where did you go to next?
So, we stayed in that building. I did about 1.4 4 mil in that building in a year, which if you saw the building was pretty impressive. Um, so that’s when we went from like 140k in a year to 1.4 mil. And that space is what allowed us to have almost an,000% growth in yeah, less than a few months really. Um, but then we got a second building and this actually was our first ever industrial unit, proper industrial unit. had a roller shut door and all of that stuff. Um, so we got that unit then and then the year that we got that unit we did 4.5 mil. Wow.
How did you go about finding the manufacturers for all of these products?
I never in my life had I met someone who owned a beauty business, an online beauty business. You where do you start? Who do you ask? Um, so I literally just scoured Google for weeks and eventually and I’d ring these companies and so it’s like, no, no, no, I’m not working with you. Who are you? What is this brand? You know, they work with big brands. Didn’t touch me. So eventually we found a manufacturer up north who would work with us.
Earlier you mentioned you had a viral Tik Tok moment. Um, talk us through that experience and how that ended up happening.
I had unintentionally created a viral sales pitch of a product that actually didn’t even exist yet. I actually deleted the Tik Tok account that had the original viral video on it. Oh wow. Because it was so distracting Tik Tok. This is before I turned it into a business. I was trying to study. I was finding myself just on the app. So I actually thought, oh, you know what? Screw this. I’m going to delete the app.
Let’s address the elephant in the room. Dragon’s Den. How did you go about applying for the show?
So, I didn’t actually apply for Dragon’s Den. They asked me to go on. I wouldn’t have applied for it myself. I knew that whatever happened on Dragon’s Den, however catastrophically wrong or well it went, I knew that we would make a theatrical out of it on socials.
Give us some insight into the whole process. Um what was some of the stuff that happened behind the scenes um that you went through?
So it’s a long day. I don’t think people realize this when you go on Dragon. I was actually saying to someone earlier that I had a lot of people, you know, who know me in real life and they thought that it was filmed live. Um, they didn’t realize it was fil, you know, gets filmed sometimes a year in advance. Mine was sort of seven, eight months in advance. Um, so you have to wait seven, eight months and it’s horrible.
Do you feel like it was a blessing in disguise being rejected by the dens?
Oh my gosh, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. We’ve got nearly 100,000 more followers on social media. We’ve had so much press coverage. We’ve had a 66% sales uplift that’s basically continued pretty much since the show. It’s transformed the whole trajectory of my business.
What was your revenue in year 1? And what is your revenue now?
It was around 40k and I was a soul trader. So, it wasn’t bad for a little student side hustle. For sure. And compared to right now, what revenue did you do last year? Uh, we finished on 5 mil 2024. Crazy. And then yeah, we’re going to be doing more than that this year.
What’s the most money you’ve made in a single day?
Over 100k. Damn. Yeah. Over 100k. We had one day actually. This wasn’t our biggest day, but this was pretty wild where I made a Tik Tok video about a product. One product. And the Tik Tok video probably took me 3 minutes to make. Yeah. And it went so viral and I sold like over 35 grams worth of just off the Tik Tok video.
What are the typical profit margins in a beauty product?
Um it really depends. Uh things like makeup much higher. Yeah. My products manufactured in the UK 100% natural and they’ve got no no water in them. But in terms of our annual, we normally sit about our uh gross profit margin as a business normally sits about an average of between 63 to 65%.
Can you break down the revenue across your different sales channels?
Yes. So this es and flows a little bit, but and this is another thing they didn’t really like about me on Dragon’s Den. Um we Tik Tok shop makes up a big majority Tik Tok shop UK now big majority of well of our revenue so it sits about 45% of our annual revenue comes from Tik Tok shop directly an average of around 30% on our website so obviously direct to our consumer which is where we like having people because you know they’re our customers then um and then our wholesale was sitting at averaging about 22% sent.
Talk to me about your relationship with Boots.
So Boots reached out to me and I couldn’t believe it. I’d manifested Boots though. I was like one day I made this really viral Tik Tok about it and it’s and um I was giving a speech and I’d actually said to my family I said oh when hair syrup started to sort of take off a little bit maybe a year in I said I think these products will be in boots one day and every single person laughed at me and they were like you have lost the plot.
At what point did you feel financially secure to be able to pay yourself?
I don’t know how people do it if they’re not if they’re not getting, you know, at least some finan personal financial security. I think, you know, not that I’m an expert, but honestly, the way that, you know, so much of your business’s money just gets rented through expenses, tax, outgoings, make the most of what you can take. look after yourself as well as just I I truly believe that you know what is the point of having a huge really successful profitable business if you personally if your finances are personal finances are suffering.
What are your biggest expenses for the business?
Stock. We’re quite lucky because we’re we’re based in southwest Wales. you know, our things like renting a warehouse and stuff like that isn’t anywhere near what it would be if we were in London. And then we spend a lot on ads. We’ve reigned it in a little bit. Things went a bit crazy last year.
How do you turn those views into actual money on Tik Tok?
Tik Tok’s a funny one. People always ask, “What’s the secret? How do you go viral? What’s the formula?”… But I always raise an eyebrow to how sustainable that would be if your content is not authentic. So the way hair syrup’s been built and the way we continue to build it is just through authenticity.
What would you say is more effective, paid marketing or organic marketing?
Organic any day of the week. I know that you can scale a brand in 2025 by having a product, hammering ads, hammering affiliates, but your margins are squeezed when you do that. And also, you run the real risk of just being another one of those brands that is huge on Tik Tok for a few months.
What has been the biggest challenge in that whole journey?
I’ve had a lot of times where I’ve thought this isn’t going to work. I should just give up. Uh I should stop doing it. There’s no point. What am I doing this for? But some of the most difficult things I think come when you’re having like a bit of a growth period. Um, so anytime the business is sort of expanding and you’re doing new things that you’ve never done before, that’s always really really difficult because I have no one to kind of tell me what to do, how to do things.
What are your plans for Hair Syrup? Um, new products, um, new retailers. What have you got coming?
The next retailers we’re going to be looking at are retailers across Europe, um, parts of North America, things like that. Um, so I’ve got my eye on a few. I’d really love to get into Ulta Beauty and places like that. And then in terms of new products, we are bringing out a cherry hair oil, which cherries are the kind of in thing for 2025. And then we’re also going to launch a leave-in conditioner eventually and a hair mask at some point.
What is one piece of advice you would give them in starting out in the beauty space?
I would say find yourself a hero product. So, something that you can get really well known for. Don’t try and spread yourself too thin by launching and bringing out loads of different stuff. get your hero product to get your name out there and get your community, fan base, customers excited and I would say grow and expand from there.
Lucy Business Stats
Lucy’s journey with Hair Syrup is a masterclass in lean startup and viral marketing. Starting from a student side hustle, the business has scaled to incredible heights, demonstrating the power of authenticity and a strong product-market fit. Here are some of the key stats that define her success.
- Founded in 2020 from a conservatory in southwest Wales.
- Achieved $5 million in revenue in 2024.
- Started with a initial investment of only a few hundred pounds.
- Maintains a healthy 65% gross profit margin.
- Recorded a single-day sales high of over $100,000.
- Grew from £40k in Year 1 to a multi-million pound enterprise in under 5 years.
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Year 1 Revenue | ~$50,000 |
| Current Yearly Revenue | $5,000,000 |
| Biggest Single Day Revenue | $100,000+ |
| Gross Profit Margin | 65% |
Lucy Method
Lucy’s success wasn’t an accident; it was a result of a methodical yet agile approach. She solved a personal problem, validated it with an authentic audience, and scaled with intention. Here’s a breakdown of her core method for building a viral brand.
- Identified a personal problem (damaged hair) and created a unique solution through extensive research.
- Shared her journey authentically on TikTok, which led to an initial viral moment and demand for a non-existent product.
- Started extremely lean, testing the market with minimal investment by hand-labeling bottles and using a cheap website.
- Scaled operations incrementally, moving from a conservatory to a charity shop, then to industrial units as revenue grew.
- Leveraged major PR opportunities, like a high-profile rejection on Dragon’s Den, by creating reactive and humorous content.
Lucy Tools
To build her empire, Lucy relied on a mix of simple, accessible tools and strategic platforms. Her tech stack prioritized authenticity and direct customer connection over complex, expensive systems, especially in the beginning. Here are the key tools that powered Hair Syrup’s growth.
- TikTok: The primary platform for organic marketing, community building, and direct sales via TikTok Shop.
- Shopify: Used for her e-commerce website, costing only a few pounds per month initially to build a direct-to-consumer channel.
- Amazon: Sourced initial supplies like bottles, mailer boxes, and labels in small quantities to keep startup costs low.
- Google Scholar & PubMed: Used for free, in-depth scientific research to formulate effective and natural hair care products.
- Manual Filling Machine: A key piece of equipment that allowed her to package products herself before scaling to larger manufacturing runs.
Key Notes
Lucy’s story is filled with powerful lessons for any aspiring entrepreneur. Her journey highlights that you don’t need a huge budget or a team to start; you need a great product, an authentic voice, and the resilience to turn setbacks into opportunities. These are the most critical takeaways from her experience.
- Authenticity is your greatest marketing asset; being yourself builds a loyal community that no amount of paid ads can replicate.
- A public rejection can be a massive PR win if you own the narrative and respond with creativity and confidence.
- Starting lean forces creativity and allows you to test your business idea without significant financial risk.
- Focusing on a single “hero product” is more effective for brand building than launching with a complex product line.
- Direct-to-consumer channels like your own website and social media shops provide higher margins and invaluable customer data.
Get Started in Just 5 Steps
Inspired by Lucy’s story? You can start your own journey towards building a viral brand. It begins with solving a problem and connecting with an audience. Here are five actionable steps to guide you on how to start a viral hair business or any product-based business from scratch.
- Find a Personal Problem: Look for a problem you’ve faced yourself. Your genuine passion and understanding of the issue will be your biggest strength.
- Research & Create a Solution: Use free resources like Google Scholar to formulate a solution. Create a “hero product” that truly works and stands out.
- Build an Authentic Social Presence: Choose a platform like TikTok. Share your journey, the problem, and your solution honestly. Focus on providing value, not just selling.
- Start Lean & Test the Market: Don’t invest heavily upfront. Create a basic website, buy minimal inventory, and see if people are willing to pay for your product.
- Own Your Narrative & Scale Smartly: As you grow, control your brand’s story. Use every opportunity, even setbacks, to connect with your audience and reinvest profits into scaling operations.
Conclusion
Lucy’s transformation from a student mixing oils in a conservatory to the founder of a $5M/year viral hair brand is nothing short of remarkable. Her story proves that with authenticity, resilience, and a smart, lean strategy, it’s possible to build a hugely successful business from the ground up. By focusing on a hero product and leveraging the power of social media, she has created a blueprint for anyone wondering how to start a viral hair business and turn a passion into a profitable enterprise.