MADE TO STICK

Aliett Buttelman and Nina La Bruna do not have a cap table, but that hasn’t deterred would-be investors.

- BY ALI DONALDSON

FAZIT CO-FOUNDERS ALIETT BUTTELMAN AND NINA LA BRUNA INVENTED A GENUINELY NEW BEAUTY CATEGORY AND TURNED GLITTER FRECKLES INTO A GLOBAL PHENOMENON. HAVING HIT $40 MILLION IN SALES, THE COMPANY HAS ONE SIMPLE GOAL: BE ICONIC.

Their inboxes are filled with cold emails from private equity firms looking to back their bootstrapped beauty brand, Fazit, whose viral makeup patches you’ve seen if you ever scroll Instagram, or know anyone who attended Taylor Swift's Eras Tour. On a Monday in January, Buttelman tells me she received 10 pitches just that morning. They estimate that, since 2024, when Fazit’s products first went viral, they’ve been approached by 50 serious investors. Their answer has always been the same: No.

For starters, they don’t need the money. The first-time founders seeded the business in 2022 with $13,000 in savings and $200,000 from family and friends. Last year, their annual revenue was projected to hit $40 million. Besides, they don’t want to cede control to (male) investors who don’t understand their customer as deeply as they do—especially ones who condescend, hit on them, and generally underestimate them as a girlie pop brand who owe their success to a “lucky break,” as one beauty executive told them. “Getting our product on the most famous people in the world was not a lucky break,” says Buttelman. “There’s strategy behind it. It was years in the making.”