06/23/2026
Karen Young's education in beauty came from watching her grandmother and uncles in Guyana — coconut oil, careful body care, an everyday act of self-love. She launched OUI the People with $1,500 in her bank account, starting with razors as a tribute to her uncles, after four years learning packaging design at Estée Lauder.
As a Black woman founder, Karen has faced investors who doubt a brand built by a woman of color can appeal broadly — even as funding to Black-founded startups dropped 71% in a single year, more than double the overall market decline.
She built anyway, let her data speak and learned an early lesson the hard way: launching too many products at once splits customer attention rather than building it. She narrowed focus and let one product earn trust before adding the next.
OUI the People is now on Sephora's shelves and projected to double in size this year, scaling from 260 to over 600 retail doors — even as funding access has tightened.
The lesson: do one thing very well before you do ten things at once. Focus isn't a limitation. It's the strategy.
