Year Zero: The Quiet Work Behind Building an Indie Brand the World Hasn't Met Yet
Indie founders are quietly packing boxes, refining formulas, and building worlds no one fully sees yet. This post explores what it really looks like to build a brand without a celebrity machine behind it, how to support indie brands during gifting season, and what to focus on if you’re the one creating something from scratch.
It’s been raining in Los Angeles.
Everyone outside of LA imagines endless sun, but winter here has its own rhythm — gray mornings, damp sidewalks, everything unusually green. It’s the kind of weather that pulls you into the quiet work: post office runs, Costco hauls, pot of soup on the stove, a stack of books waiting for you at the local shop.
This is the season of cozy tasks and unglamorous effort.
For me, that’s looked like packing and shipping 65 Casa Noon boxes from my kitchen table — TYB rewards, keychains, beach bags, editor samples. The kind of work that fills your house with cardboard and tape and packing slips, and makes it obvious that something is happening… but only if you’re physically standing in the middle of it.
If you’re not in my kitchen, you’d never know.
And honestly? That’s what building an indie brand looks like most days.
You’re holding a big vision, quietly doing the work that no one sees, and trying to stay in relationship with the future version of your brand… long before the rest of the world cares.
Three Years In, Still at the Starting Line
I was at a founder dinner recently, sitting next to another woman building a brand. She turned to me and said:
“Doesn’t it feel amazing to finally reach the finish line after three years?”
And I had to laugh, because the truth is: I don’t feel like I’ve reached any kind of finish line.
I feel like I’ve just stepped up to the starting line.
The past three years with Casa Noon have been:
endless rounds of concepting and re-concepting
sample after sample, working with different chemists
searching for the right packaging partners
building the advisory team
bringing in the first investors
refining the formulas until my skin and my standards both said “yes”
Now we’re on pre-order. We’re starting to ship samples to editors and community members. The real product drop is coming. The PR machine is beginning to warm up.
From the outside, it may look like we’re “about to launch.”
On the inside, it feels like we’ve just arrived at point 0.0001.
This is the part almost no one talks about.
Not just in beauty — in every industry.
By the time someone is “everywhere,” they’ve usually spent years (sometimes a decade) doing work that looked small from the outside: touring tiny venues, posting with 200 views, sampling formulas, testing ideas, wondering if any of it will land.
The Popularity Contest Problem (Beauty Edition)
Over coffee the other morning, my husband and I were talking about the Grammys. He’s an artist and not easily impressed by industry noise, and he made the comment that it all feels like a popularity contest now — more about reach, virality, and the right machine than about the most innovative or emotionally resonant work.
Not always. But often.
His question was: “Can you imagine if it was like that in beauty?”
And I just looked at him and said, “It is.”
We’re in a beauty era where:
Selena, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, Hailey Bieber (and more) have their own brands
those brands often dominate awards, shelf space, and press
the conversation leans heavily toward celebrity-founded lines with global distribution and marketing budgets to match
There is nothing wrong with those brands existing. Many of the products are excellent.
But it does shape the landscape for indie founders.
When you’re building without:
a celebrity face
a corporate budget
global retail placement (yet)
…the game is different. Not worse. Just different.
Right now, Casa Noon is being built like this:
indie first
pre-order based
community-led
starting with selective placement before we ever consider a Sephora-level rollout
We’re talking to advisors about major retail for 2026. We’re working toward it. But I’m under no illusion that we’re competing on the same playing field as a pop star’s brand.
And if you’re building your own thing — a beauty line, a product, a service, art, a studio — you’re probably feeling some version of this too.
Product First, Always
Here’s what I come back to again and again:
It has to be product first.
Whether your “product” is:
a physical formula
a coaching container
a workshop series
a creative studio
or a hybrid of all of the above
…you have to be ruthlessly honest about the value and the experience you’re creating.
Questions I ask myself constantly:
Do I believe in this enough to put it on someone’s skin?
Do I believe in this enough to stand behind it when no one knows my name?
Do I believe in this enough to keep talking about it when the algorithm is quiet?
If you’re building something and wondering why it doesn’t feel like it’s “landing” yet, it’s rarely because your idea is bad. Most of the founders and artists I talk to are not stuck because they lack strategy.
They’re stuck because, in trying to say and do the “right” things, their real voice gets lost in the noise.
The work becomes optimized for:
what we think the algorithm wants
what we think a buyer wants
what we think investors want to hear
And somewhere in there, the actual heartbeat of the thing — the why of it — gets buried.
Gifting Season: Why Indie Brands Need You
We’re heading into gifting season, and it’s worth saying this out loud:
The brands you buy from now are the brands you are choosing to keep alive.
If you have the means and you want your dollars to matter, consider:
skipping the hundredth Skims or Rhode haul this year
buying the record from the indie artist you love (the actual vinyl)
gifting a beauty line that doesn’t have global shelf space yet
sending your people to the small ceramicist, the Etsy shop, the painter, the perfumer, the substack writer who has been quietly building their corner of the world
You can absolutely still buy from celebrity brands. This isn’t about shame.
It’s about remembering that you probably know at least one person who is:
hand-packing boxes at their kitchen table
mailing editor samples from their local post office
pouring their art into a product you can actually hold
Your support is not symbolic. It’s structural.
A Final Word for the Builders
If you’re in the season of:
rainy days and post office runs
pre-orders and quiet launches
long timelines and small, unsexy tasks
building a brand that isn’t born to be “algorithm optimized”
You’re not behind.
You’re just earlier than most people realize.
Keep building the product you’re proud of.
Keep sharpening the story that feels true.
Keep letting people actually feel you in your work.
And if you’re not the one building, but you love someone who is?
This season, choose them.
Buy the indie record. Share the small brand. Forward the link. Wear the thing. Talk about it.
That’s how cult brands are born: not just from founders with vision, but from communities who decide, together, that something is worth believing in before the rest of the world catches up.
You'll hear:
• What it really looks like to prep for launch without celebrity backing or big budgets
• Why indie brands deserve more energy than algorithm-optimized favorites
• How to support creators and artists during gifting season
• The emotional reality of being in the "almost there" stage
• Why your founder lore — your mythology — is still the clearest path to resonance
• A reminder that your work isn't stuck; your voice is just waiting to be felt again
Perfect for indie founders, artists, and anyone quietly building something they believe in.
Links & Mentions
Subscribe to The Unschool Newsletter (now matching the pod)
Intuitive Biz Academy (limited Black Friday return; updates included for current students)
Cult Brand Accelerator (January interest list)
Out of Office Club (join the challenge: Vibe • Viral • Value)
Oui, We Studio on Instagram (education hub)
