Diara Ndiaye’s career path reads like a beauty lover’s dream journey: she’s worked for Sephora, L’Oreal Paris, Temptu, and Glossier, and she used what she learned working for these brands to launch her own beauty empire. Ami ColleHer initiative, which focuses on beauty basics for people with melanin-rich skin, was an instant success, garnering accolades including Best Cosmetics Product Launch at the 2021 Beauty Independent Beacon Awards.
she Shopify Master In the podcast, she shares her journey and details the marketing wizardry she’s learned while working for some of the most influential beauty brands of the past 50 years.
I sense a gap in the beautiful scenery
The Senegalese-born Harlem founder, who previously worked on the sales floor at Sephora before joining the social and product teams at L’Oréal Paris, Temptu and Glossier, wanted to create beauty basics for melanin-rich skin.
Diarra knew there was a demand for vegan, non-toxic beauty basics for people like her, and with this knowledge, Ami Kore launched three products that became almost instant hits: a Light-Catching Highlighter, a Skin-Enhancing Tint, and a Lip Treatment Oil made from baobab seeds.
She won a Beacon Award and the media coverage she received revealed the secret to her victory. trendand even won shelf space at Sephora. “Creating a brand that stands out with an orange box and a black floor was about sparking curiosity and filling a deep need among (Black and Brown) people.” Design formulations and packaging that would make the product stand out and contrast with traditional products in the existing market.
Leveraging data in product development
In the beauty industry, where intuition often dictates product development, Diarra’s approach to building the brand stands out for its heavy reliance on data. His time at L’Oréal saw data analytics influence key marketing and product decisions, leaving a strong impression that he carried into his entrepreneurial journey. “L’Oréal was very data-centric, and decisions were based on pattern recognition,” Diarra explains. His exposure to advanced data analytics from NPD and Nielsen showed him how important these types of insights were in creating products that not only met customer needs, but anticipated them.
Translating corporate strategy into startup agility
Diarrha knew her company needed a data-driven approach to its product offering, but didn’t have the budget to tap into the vast resources of a global conglomerate like L’Oréal. Instead, she augmented the findings from her Google Analytics data with a more accessible, yet equally insightful, environment: social media. She conducted informal, yet insightful, market research by engaging directly with potential customers through platforms like Instagram. “We interviewed over 400 people to really understand what they wanted,” she says, emphasizing her methodical approach to collecting actionable data.
Demand-driven product creation
Insights gained from social media conversations directly influenced Ami Colé’s product development: Diarrha was able to identify a gap in the market for her customer base and develop an everyday product that her community actively wanted.
This strategy helped the brand’s products be well-received and built a foundation of trust and loyalty among customers. “It wasn’t just about selling a product, it was about creating something that truly served the community,” Diarra says.
Launching a brand takes more than having a great product; it takes understanding the market. For aspiring entrepreneurs, Diarra’s data-driven strategy emphasizes the importance of consumer insights in developing products that resonate with her target audience. Through intuition and experience, Diarra felt she was filling a need, and the data and customer feedback backed it up. This approach minimizes risk and maximizes the chances of success, especially in an industry as competitive as beauty.
To learn more about Diarra’s origins and how she identified and responded to a gap in the market, Shopify Master Podcast.
