When Taylor Frankel, her sister Ally, and her mom Jenny launched NUDESTIX in 2014, the beauty industry was obsessed with full glam and heavy coverage. Competitors focused on 20-step tutorials and two-hour YouTube videos for the perfect smokey eye. Against this backdrop of complexity, the family of founders saw an opportunity for a streamlined beauty regime with minimalist, multitask products.
Today, NUDESTIX has achieved eight-figure revenue, sells in more than 3,000 distribution points across more than 30 countries, and counts celebrities like Sofia Richie and Hilary Duff among its devotees. One of NUDESTIX’s hero products sells every 60 seconds, and the brand generated $65 million in earned media value in 2024 alone.
The secret to NUDESTIX’s explosive growth? Approaching its celebrity partnerships with authenticity, ignoring the lure of throwing money to fuel relationships.
Taylor joined the Shopify Masters podcast to share the creator and influencer marketing strategy she’s developed that actually converts to sales.
How to secure and pull off a successful celebrity partnership
1. Build a strong foundation
Before diving into celebrity partnerships, Taylor emphasizes the importance of laying solid groundwork. “First and foremost, you need to be so clear on your raison d’être, who you are, and who you’re trying to speak to,” she explains. The NUDESTIX team spent their first 30 days creating a comprehensive deck that outlined their mission statement and target customer.
“At the end of the day, we were [also] the customers,” Taylor says. The sisters interviewed women across different age ranges to validate their assumptions, ensuring they weren’t the only ones feeling frustrated with the beauty industry’s complexity.
Taylor, her mom, and her sister discovered that, despite being from different generations—Gen Z, millennial, and Gen X—all three cofounders wanted the same simplified beauty routine. This cross-generational appeal became a cornerstone of their brand positioning.
2. Take a grassroots approach
NUDESTIX launched in 2014, when social media was still in its infancy. Instagram had launched, and TikTok didn’t yet exist. With no marketing budget, the team took a grassroots approach that would later attract A-list attention.
Taylor began posting 30-second Snapchat videos every morning, showing her real makeup routine. “I would create a video every single day before I went to school,” she says. She also shared behind-the-scenes content, posting photos of boxes being packed in their basement and orders arriving at their home.
The authenticity wasn’t just a marketing strategy; it was born from necessity and genuine passion. “We were tired of seeing these crazy billboards and going into a local retailer and seeing these beautiful models, but yet feeling so uninspired,” Taylor says. This frustration with generic industry standards that dictated advertisements, brand, and beauty trends, compelled NUDESTIX to create content that felt refreshingly real to audiences.
3. Create a strategic partnership framework
NUDESTIX’s approach to celebrity partnerships differs significantly from traditional endorsement deals. Instead of paying large upfront fees, the team developed what it calls “CSOP”—a celebrity stock option plan that positions influencers and celebrities as investors rather than just endorsers.
For a cash-strapped startup, this provides access to high-profile partnerships without massive upfront costs. For celebrities, it offers them an opportunity to invest in a business they endorse and provides them with an opportunity to learn about building a company from the inside.
“We don’t have these crazy budgets and millions of dollars to pay celebrities to post about our product,” Taylor explains, “but we figured out this way to incentivize and get creators and celebrities excited about the future business opportunity.”
This endorsement-ownership model attracts celebrities who are genuinely interested in entrepreneurship and business building, creating more authentic partnerships. When someone has equity in your company, their motivation extends far beyond a single campaign or post.
4. Lean into organic integration
The partnership with Sofia Richie exemplifies how this type of collaboration can create extraordinary results. The connection began through a mutual friend and adviser who helped facilitate the introduction. What made the relationship truly special was the genuine alignment between Sofia’s personal brand and NUDESTIX’s values.
“[Sofia] loves minimalist beauty. And she’s this really beautiful Gen Z example of quiet luxury,” Taylor describes. “She’s modest but authentic. And she really embraces this kind of less-is-more approach to what she does.”
The partnership started in 2023, but it was Sofia’s decision to include NUDESTIX in her highly publicized 2024 wedding that created a global phenomenon. Without any obligation to feature the brand, Sofia chose to showcase NUDESTIX products throughout her wedding weekend.
The results were extraordinary. Photos and videos from Sofia’s wedding reached audiences across Australia, Asia, the Middle East, North America, Mexico, and Europe. “When I say the whole internet, I mean it was a global phenomenon,” Taylor says. When celebrity partners genuinely love and use your products, their endorsements feel natural and believable to audiences.
Celebrity partnerships at NUDESTIX often involve collaborative product development. It’s something that creates mutual investment in success. The brand has developed custom products with influencers like Glamzilla, turning partnerships into co-creation opportunities. These products embody the true collaborative nature of NUDESTIX partnerships and go beyond surface-level endorsements.
“We’d been working with [Glamzilla] for years before that partnership came to be,” Taylor says. This long-term relationship building created trust and authentic appreciation for the brand before any formal partnership began. When they finally collaborated on a custom product, it felt natural and genuine to everyone involved, including their customers.
In addition to focusing on strong partnerships, the brand sends 500 monthly mailers to influencers with no posting obligations, creating opportunities for organic mentions and authentic product integration.
“We actually see a higher earned media value conversion on these seedings than even a lot of paid deliverables because obviously there’s no obligation to post if you get a free product,” Taylor says. When content creators like and use the products they endorse, as well as share them as part of their beauty routines, audiences respond more positively than to obvious paid partnerships.
Once NUDESTIX grew to its current eight-figure revenue, it knew maintaining authenticity while scaling partnerships required even more intentional choices. The brand has held back on certain launches and partnerships, focusing instead on sustainable growth and brand integrity.
As Taylor reflects on more than a decade of building NUDESTIX, her advice for aspiring founders is refreshing: “You just need to post the thing.” The anxiety around public criticism and judgment is real, but no successful founder has achieved growth without taking those risks.
“There has been no successful individual who hasn’t risked judgment or criticism by putting themselves out there,” she emphasizes. The key is accepting that feeling “a little cringe sometimes is part of the process.
For founders looking to build their own celebrity partnerships, the NUDESTIX model proves that authenticity, innovation, and relationship building can create extraordinary results.
Catch Taylor’s full interview on the Shopify Masters YouTube channel to hear NUDESTIX’s full journey from basement startup to eight-figure beauty brand.
