Some prestige beauty and skincare brands keep their launches under lock and key, sharing little, if anything, with the public before a product drop. 

Beauty influencer and entrepreneur Mikayla Nogueira, 27, wanted to turn that idea on its head. 

When Nogueira teamed up with industry veteran Ani Hadjinian to start her own makeup brand, POV Beauty, she had more than 16 million followers — and a distinct vision for its product line and marketing strategy. 

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Nogueira’s experiences working in beauty retail and doing makeup for more than a decade revealed a common pain point: People weren’t confident in their ability to apply makeup. Many of their struggles came down to inadequate skin preparation, which often prompted a lot of follow-up questions. 

POV Beauty, which is backed by investment firm Imaginary Ventures, currently offers four face products and a lip treatment to address the skin-prep issue. 

 “Every single product in the lineup is loaded with actives that are going to help the things that you’re typically using makeup to fix,” Nogueira says, noting that POV Beauty’s website features educational resources to ensure consumers make the most of its system. 

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With a passion for and a degree in marketing, Nogueira had two objectives ahead of POV Beauty’s launch in 2025: Be extremely loud — and prepare for a lot of opinions. 

“ My main goal with the initial launch was to create an insane stir-up and conversation that lasted about a week prior to the [drop],” Nogueira says. 

Nogueira and Hadjinian hired a team to create content for the brand’s website and social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. 

It was big, it was loud, it was like you were in the arena, spotlights were on.

At first, people on social media expressed surprise: Mikayla Nogueira was launching a brand. 

Then the speculation began. What type of business would it be? Which products would it offer? 

Over time, POV Beauty revealed its name, packaging, product line and the “why” behind the brand, along with the education to help customers understand what it was selling. 

POV Beauty also harnessed the power of giveaways and PR boxes, tried-and-true pillars of social media marketing strategy.

The strategic effort paid off: Within seven minutes of launch, POV Beauty pulled in $1 million in sales. 

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Hadjinian, who spent over a decade at Estée Lauder Companies, helped scale luxury skincare brand Augustinus Bader and serves as POV Beauty’s CEO, explains just how distinct POV Beauty’s launch strategy is compared to that of other brands in the beauty space. 

“It was big, it was loud, it was like you were in the arena, spotlights were on,” Hadjinian says. “There is zero dress rehearsal — zero — [so] your success is magnified, and so are all your failures.”

POV Beauty experienced a public setback with its color launch, which faced unexpected shipping delays. 

“ We’re still a very small team,” Nogueira says. “Things slip through the cracks, and I appreciate that these things happen so early on because now you can take control of it, fix it, implement it and just be better and better as the brand continues to grow.”

It’s how you show up to [face] those failures that’s going to transform your business.

As challenging as such high visibility can be at times, Hadjinian emphasizes that failure is part and parcel of entrepreneurship. 

“ We’re entrepreneurs — [failure] is what happens,” Hadjinian says. “Not every single thing that you do is a win. It’s important for people, particularly entrepreneurs who are starting a business, [to understand that] you’re going to have multiple failures, and it’s how you show up to [face] those failures that’s going to transform your business.”

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Business leaders must lean into those learning opportunities and consider what could have been done differently, not from a place of blame, but with curiosity and open-mindedness, Hadjinian adds. 

The bigger you become, the more eyes are on you, and the more is said.

Additionally, despite going into POV Beauty’s launch expecting people to voice strong opinions, Nogueira admits that the intense criticism that comes with being such a public entrepreneur can be challenging: “ The bigger you become, the more eyes are on you, and the more is said.”

However, Nogueira has no plans to abandon the marketing strategy that’s served POV Beauty so well; she encourages the team to use it for every launch. 

“ I’m proof that that works because that’s why I am where I am in my career,” Nogueira explains. “I’ve done that strategy for five years, and it’s bulletproof. It works every time. You just need to get people talking, get people excited and build it, build it, build it — and then you explode with the actual launch.”

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Now, as Nogueira balances being a creator and founder, both of which she considers her full-time jobs, she’s excited to expand her entrepreneurial skill set and continue learning from Hadjinian along the way. 

“ Ani and I are like a metaphor for the brand because we have very different points of view,” Nogueira says. “But it just goes to show what happens when you take different points of view and create something magical with it.”