How these women turned their fame into fortune
Content creation has become big, big business, with top social media stars able to build multi-million dollar, global enterprises on the back of an intelligently-curated YouTube channel or TikTok or Instagram account.
Tara Simich is a case in point. Simich launched her hair tool business Mermade Hair from her Perth garage at the end of 2019 with just $30,000 in savings. Subsequently, the business has sold more than a million units of the tool. It is now available in more than 50 countries through massive global outlets including department store Selfridges, chemist chain Boots and make-up retailer Sephora. Simich says the company enjoys annual earnings of $35 million.
Tara Simich, Mermade Hair founder.
Mermade Hair benefitted from a captive audience during the pandemic, when videos of people doing their hair blew up on platforms like TikTok, where the business has a 390,000-strong following. More recently, a partnership with reality star Khloe Kardashian, who posted an Instagram reel using the tool, generated $10 million in retail contracts. She says her own experience first led her to experiment with manufacturing the tool.
“I’m the sort of person who can’t curl their hair with curling tongs. I thought how good would it be if my crimper from the ’90s was bigger and a different shape to make a soft, modern wave. I couldn’t believe such a device didn’t exist. So my husband and I did some research and found a factory in China making crimpers and got them to make a prototype,” says Simich.
Aside from creating a variation on a theme by designing a new type of hair crimper, she disrupted the market by making a pink tool, when at the time, all the other curling wands were black. A first mover advantage on Instagram worked in
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