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| Melissa Butler |
FAMU grad Melissa Butler, Founder and CEO of The Lip Bar, Inc., recently announced that her company has become the largest Black-owned makeup company in Target Stores.
“We’ve been working on this for so long,” she expressed. “When you see a lot of the brands with the big space, it’s conglomerates. It’s not like little Black girls from Detroit taking up this much space.”
As Rattler Nation previously reported ,The Lip Bar’s (TLB) journey started online with a single SKU.
In 2012 Butler appeared on the popular TV show the Shark Tank with the aim of securing financial backing to grow her vegan beauty brand --- the panel critical and harsh even calling her make up “clown makeup”.
Ten years later, Butler took out billboards in Atlanta, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. that read: “‘Shark Tank’ told me to quit. 10 years and 2 million units sold. Thanks “Mr. Wonderful.”
Kevin O’Leary, also known as “Mr. Wonderful,” went on to applaud The Lip Bar’s success.
“ I’m proud of them for taking the heat” O’Leary told The Breakfast Club. “I’m proud that they’re entrepreneurs and are successful. It’s a wonderful thing to see that happen. They were facing an almost impossible task because going into the cosmetics industry is so difficult to get market share. But they pulled it off, so you gotta applaud them — there’s no question about it. But that is a tough space because the margins are so high that the competition is just brutal.”
Butler used the Shark Tank feedback as motivation, and was able to raise $2 million which allowed her to expand her business and catch the notice of Target allowing her grow her business to more than 1,000 stores nationwide. TLB is now sold in 750 Targets, 500 Walmarts, and has a flagship store in Detroit. She recently just closed on $6.7m in seed funding which helped her to further expand her business.
In 2012 Butler appeared on the popular TV show the Shark Tank with the aim of securing financial backing to grow her vegan beauty brand --- the panel critical and harsh even calling her make up “clown makeup”.
“ I’m proud of them for taking the heat” O’Leary told The Breakfast Club. “I’m proud that they’re entrepreneurs and are successful. It’s a wonderful thing to see that happen. They were facing an almost impossible task because going into the cosmetics industry is so difficult to get market share. But they pulled it off, so you gotta applaud them — there’s no question about it. But that is a tough space because the margins are so high that the competition is just brutal.”
Butler used the Shark Tank feedback as motivation, and was able to raise $2 million which allowed her to expand her business and catch the notice of Target allowing her grow her business to more than 1,000 stores nationwide. TLB is now sold in 750 Targets, 500 Walmarts, and has a flagship store in Detroit. She recently just closed on $6.7m in seed funding which helped her to further expand her business.