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At last year’s Shoptalk conference in Las Vegas, Danika Berry’s meeting with TikTok was never about chasing viral fame. The discussion centered on practical opportunities for the beauty founders she supports. That single conversation yielded something far more valuable than a standard press mention: a direct contact inside the platform who could guide a founder through onboarding, clarify how affiliate partnerships work, and provide answers tailored to a specific business.
This distinction sits at the very core of Berry’s work. As she puts it, “Visibility gets you seen. Access gets you somewhere.”
Berry’s career spans more than two decades in publicity and brand strategy before she stepped into the founder’s role herself. In 2023, she established National Black Beauty Founders Day, observed annually on August 30. Today, she leads Black Beauty Founders, a trade platform and professional network that connects over 3,000 founders and industry professionals. Reflecting on her journey, she notes, “I spent 20 years getting people into the room. Now I am building the room.”
The founders within her network are predominantly millennials, a generation representing roughly 22% of US small business owners according to Guidant Financial’s 2026 survey. Many of them arrived at entrepreneurship by leaving a traditional job or never entering one at all. Over the past three years, Berry has observed a defining trait of this group: what they accomplish when handed a door instead of a microphone.
The shift Berry describes is fundamentally about permission. Fifteen years ago, the company typically gained fame before its founder did. Consumers knew the brand CURLS long before they knew Mahisha Dellinger. Camille Rose secured distribution and repeat customers before Janell Stephens became a recognizable name.
“Those founders were building the company first,” Berry explains. “The founder did not have to be the content strategy.”
Today’s generation runs the playbook in reverse, and they have the tools to do so. US TikTok Shop sales nearly doubled in 2025, reaching approximately $15.8 billion, with beauty and personal care ranking as the platform’s largest category. A founder can test a product concept in the morning, gauge consumer reaction by midday, and adjust pricing or positioning before the week is out.
Berry highlights specific examples of this proactive approach. Shaina Rainford of Bask & Lather embraced TikTok Shop early, moving while the opportunity was still forming rather than waiting for the space to become saturated. Dujon Smith of My Block Skin identified a potential retail buyer, reached out directly, and converted a single conversation into valuable shelf placement.
“Today’s founders are much more comfortable creating their own access instead of waiting for somebody to invite them in,” Berry observes.
This willingness to act represents the most lasting takeaway from the years this generation spent operating outside traditional institutions. They make decisions with incomplete information and face the consequences personally within the same week. As Berry summarizes, “They know how to move without permission.”
The market opportunity is substantial, but the structural gap in access is even more telling. According to McKinsey research, Black consumers account for 11.1% of total beauty spending, yet Black-owned brands capture only about 2.5% of industry revenue. The disconnect becomes clearer at the retail level: just 4% to 7% of the brands carried by specialty beauty stores, drugstores, grocery chains, and department stores are Black brands. For years, the conversation has centered on visibility and consumer attention, but the data suggests attention was never the real bottleneck. The missing ingredient has been access to the right rooms—the ones where buying decisions, investment commitments, and partnership deals actually take shape.
That is precisely the gap Berry set out to close. BBF Private Access is a members-only network designed around introductions rather than press exposure. The platform connects founders directly with the people who can move their businesses forward: retail buyers, investors, private bankers, live-shopping platforms, casting directors, and media executives. Instead of hoping a brand gets noticed, the network puts it in front of the right decision-makers on purpose.
Berry’s philosophy is straightforward: if a brand isn’t placed in front of the right people, it simply won’t be discovered. “I believe heavily in out of sight, out of mind,” she says. “How is a buyer supposed to know about your brand if nobody puts it in front of them?”
The approach is already showing early signs of traction. Berry reports that two founders featured on the platform have generated interest from a retailer and a prospective investor, though she declined to name either founder while those conversations are still live.
The underlying premise is that a founder’s story should lead somewhere more consequential than a press page. “I don’t want a founder leaving Black Beauty Founders with another article for her press page,” Berry explains. “I want somebody who can affect what happens next to know her name.” In other words, the goal is not more visibility for its own sake—it is converting visibility into tangible business outcomes through deliberate, high-stakes introductions.
Securing the initial conversation with a decision-maker is only the first hurdle. The immediate follow-up challenge is proving that the business can withstand the scrutiny of that meeting. To address the financial realities of this stage, Berry brought in Art Wilson, co-founder and managing partner of Condor Equity, a Dallas-based real estate equity firm managing a $175 million active portfolio. Wilson brings substantial firsthand experience to the table, having personally raised more than $40 million in equity and secured over $850 million in bank financing across roughly 30 properties.
Wilson deliberately avoids questioning the drive or dedication of the entrepreneurs he advises. He understands the sacrifices required to build a venture from the ground up. "I've delivered newspapers at 2 a.m. with my daughter asleep in the back seat, so I know what building from nothing costs," he explains. "The issue is rarely effort. It's that nobody in their circle ever taught them the language banks speak."
According to Wilson, that language is fundamentally documentary. A lender's decision is not based on passion or persistence but on verifiable evidence. Bank statements serve as a record of financial discipline. Tax returns demonstrate consistency over time. Properly maintained books reveal whether the owner truly comprehends the business they are asking someone else to finance.
The disconnect Wilson describes is reflected in broader national statistics. Data from Crunchbase indicates that companies with a Black founder or co-founder received $942 million in U.S. venture funding in 2025, representing approximately 0.32% of the total capital deployed. The disparity is also evident in debt financing. The Federal Reserve's 2026 Small Business Credit Survey found that among denied Black-owned firms, 55% were told that a low credit score was the primary reason for the denial. This factor ranked higher than collateral shortages, existing debt burdens, or weak sales figures.
Rather than focusing on external factors, Wilson directs his advice toward a concise set of actions that fall entirely within an owner's control. His guidance is straightforward and emphasizes fundamental financial hygiene:
The rationale behind this approach is that banks lend based on patterns, and establishing a positive pattern of financial behavior takes time. It cannot be manufactured at the last minute.
Wilson is candid, however, that thorough preparation is not a guaranteed solution to every obstacle. He acknowledges the persistent reality of bias in the lending industry. "Preparation doesn't erase bias. It exposes it," he states, clarifying that while readiness cannot eliminate prejudice, it can force it into the open where it can be identified and addressed.
An open door also tests a brand’s operational capacity, not just its appetite for growth. Berry recalls one founder whose revenue contracted from roughly $4 million per quarter to under $1 million over the span of a full year. The market demand never disappeared. The problem was that the company’s forecasting, cash management, and team depth simply could not sustain the momentum that demand created.
“It can actually be easier to make the money than it is to keep the business capable of making it,” she says.
The most common stall Berry observes occurs at a predictable inflection point: the transition from direct-to-consumer sales into serious retail partnerships. The root cause is usually expanding distribution before strengthening the operational foundation underneath it. More retail doors trigger a cascade of financial commitments, including manufacturing deposits, freight costs, retailer compliance requirements, extended payment terms, and chargebacks. If a brand sells faster than its forecast predicted, it risks stocking out. If it sells slower, the cash has already been spent on inventory that is not moving.
“Sometimes the smartest answer to a major retailer is not no,” she says. “It is not yet.”
The same dynamic plays out in management. When a founder tells Berry she is exhausted, Berry often recognizes the underlying issue as role overload. The founder is still functioning as chief executive, marketer, spokesperson, salesperson, customer service department, and recruiter all at once, simply because she is capable enough to get away with it. Every decision routes back to her, which means the entire company halts whenever she steps away.
When asked what she hopes for this cohort of founders ten years from now, Berry describes a wide range of outcomes. She wants to see founders who sell their companies, founders who hold and continue to grow them, holding companies, acquisitions, and founders who transition into the investors and board members guiding the next generation. She would also like exits to stop being viewed as a form of defection, because selling one company can provide the capital to fund the next venture and move a founder to the other side of the negotiating table.
What she is actively encouraging them toward now is ownership in the most literal sense. Her guidance centers on education around patents, proprietary formulations, customer data, and distribution agreements. These are the assets that retain value and continue to work for a founder even when she is no longer standing in front of the company every day. Building a brand that is merely popular is not enough; the goal is to build a brand that is owned, protected, and structurally valuable in its own right.
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