Although Liis co-founders Alissa Sullivan and Leslie Hendin grew up inside minutes of each other in Marin County, California. They didn’t meet until many years later, when a friend introduced them at a wedding in 2009. The duo immediately bonded over a shared obsession: scents. “We both collected little vials and miniature bottles in shoeboxes,” Sullivan says Entrepreneur. “It was a truly amazing connection. Back then it was much rarer to find someone [with] the same passion. This was before social media and all that.”
Photo credit: Emily Dulla. Co-founders Leslie Hendin (left) and Alissa Sullivan (right).
At the time, Sullivan had just accomplished her master’s degree at ISIPCA, a graduate school in perfume, cosmetic products and food flavor formulations based in Versailles, France, and Hendin was on her way to Central Saint Martins in London to pursue a master’s degree in design.
While Sullivan was starting her profession working in product development for area of interest perfume brands Penhaligon’s London and L’Artisan Parfumeur, she and Hendin one day considered creating their very own line of fragrances. “We realized we were a yin and yang of skills,” Hendin says. “Alissa with her perfume background and me with my design background.”
“But then we were like, How to start a business?“Sullivan recalls.
“We want to be able to tell stories that matter to us.”
When Hendin moved to San Francisco after graduation and Sullivan moved to Los Angeles, the couple began to seriously think about their very own brand. It was 2017 and they’d gathered a lot of experience in the world of fashion and beauty. Hendin was the second worker and creative director at Vintner’s Daughter, where she developed the company’s branding platform, and Sullivan was behind hit products from major brands equivalent to Hourglass and Iris&Romeo.
During her profession, Sullivan crossed paths with renowned French perfumer Jérôme Epinette, so the co-founders approached him about partnering on their nascent side business – and Epinette agreed. Liis was born, a combination of the common letters of Sullivan and Hendin’s names. In 2020, the brand launched its beta Discovery kit, a fragrance sampler; three full-size fragrances launched in 2021.
The co-founders never approached the line from a standing position What’s trendy? Or What do people buy? Instead, they focus on developing fragrances they would love to wear, in the packaging they would love to see on their dressing tables. (It took about two years to develop the click function on Liis’ spherical white cap.) “We want to be able to tell stories that matter to us,” Hendin says. “Everything comes from How do we want to express ourselves? [All Liis perfumes] tell really personal stories.”
The recent premiere of the brand, Cabbage Cabbageillustrates this ethos: Sullivan’s mother is French and called her “chouchou”, which is a term of endearment similar to “darling”, but there is a double meaning at play – choux à la crème is puff pastry. Liis’ Choux Choux features top notes of whipped cream and lemon zest, middle notes of caramel, vanilla and salt, and base notes of cocoa, mocha and sandalwood. The fragrance, priced at $175, is expected to reach $1 million in retail sales this yr, according to the company.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Liis
“People can walk into the store and come across us in a very organic way.”
Liis, which has at all times been self-financed, is growing by 60-70% yr on yr. The brand produces nine fragrances and six candles available at Neiman Marcus, Violet Gray, Goop and greater than 125 independent retailers in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Liis maintains impressive momentum by relying on organic growth and a distribution strategy that is “really based on discovery.”
“We’re in smaller boutiques where we would probably shop ourselves,” Hendin says. “That’s another important thing: people can come into the store and come across us organically. Then people talk about us through word of mouth on the Internet.”
TikTokin particular, has been a boon for the brand. There are tons of fragrance influencers and perfume reviews on the platform, although the co-founders didn’t realize the goldmine potential of this space when Liis entered the market.
“When we launched, TikTok went viral [and] All of our discovery kits sold out immediately,” Sullivan says, “and the funny thing is that we are self-funded and so handy that we filled them out by hand.” This meant placing perfumes in vials and handwriting the names of the scents on each one. one – a process that took about eight hours.
The brand continues to see success on social media, which does not come from PR offers or product giveaways – it flows organically to Liis.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Liis
“It’s about looking at your business [and] see what your needs are.”
Despite its early and regular momentum, Liis, like most corporations, has encountered some challenges on its growth journey. Between supply chain, warehouse and hazardous environment obstacles, the co-founders had to be open to creative pivots and problem-solving. For example, when their first warehouse didn’t provide enough attention to detail (“We want your package to be beautiful when it arrives”), they moved to one other 3PL and moved their products to one other facility.
“We didn’t go to business school, so we didn’t have a framework that taught us that this is what you need to do,” Hendin says. “I don’t think there is a universal recipe. What works for our company may not work for another company. So I think you have to look at your business, see what its needs are, and then figure out what’s right for you and use common sense to put the pieces together.”
The business that began as a side hustle is still in the “transition phase” to the co-founders’ full-time careers, but Sullivan and Hendin are adept at juggling freelance and consultant work with their growing brand – and look, they’re eager to allocate more of their time to Liis and resources. Sullivan and Hendin are excited to proceed Liis’ global scale and reach latest audiences with their fragrances and fragrance stories.