Divi

Jordan Austin's journey to founding Divi began not with entrepreneurial ambition, but with a personal crisis. While building her influencer career—posting content, flying to Los Angeles for collaborations, managing brand deals—she was under constant stress. The pressure manifested physically: she started losing her hair due to stress-induced alopecia, made worse by wearing hair extensions to cover the bald spots. By the time she got married, she was devastated: "I look in the mirror and I'm like I literally have no more hair. I didn't even want to leave the house anymore."

When wigs weren't solving the problem (a trip to a Dallas wig shop yielded only cheap Halloween-quality options), Jordan committed to a different path: she'd spend a year wearing wigs while focusing entirely on scalp health and wellness. During this period, she discovered an underground trend: women were using Monistat (an antifungal yeast infection treatment) on their scalps to grow hair back. It worked because it had anti-fungal properties that cleared product buildup from dry shampoo and other styling products. But Monistat wasn't meant for long-term use and had harmful side effects.

That's when Jordan saw an opportunity. She had studied biology at the University of Texas. She decided to become "a little chemist in my bathroom," sourcing natural ingredients and creating her own scalp serums.

In 2019, Jordan started making scalp serums with clean, natural ingredients like eucalyptus and coconut oil—products she could use every day without worry. She shared her recipes on YouTube and Instagram, showing her audience how to make and mix them. She wasn't trying to build a business; she was simply trying to serve her audience, which had always been her philosophy.

But something unexpected happened: people started asking her to ship them the product directly. By 2020-2021, she decided to formalize the idea. She found partners and a chemist, and in October 2021, Divi launched with the scalp serum as the flagship product.

Jordan went into the launch with modest expectations. "I did not think that it would pop off at all," she said. "I really was just like I want to serve my audience." She wasn't expecting the product to succeed beyond the 10% of her audience she thought might need it.

The early traction came entirely organically. Customers weren't responding to ads or marketing pushes—they were buying Divi because they wanted to solve the same problem Jordan had solved. What made the product go viral was something Divi never anticipated or asked for: before-and-after pictures.

Users started posting transformations of their own hair growth. Jordan never requested these photos, but they began flooding in. She started sharing them across her platforms, and the momentum compounded. "Every day I'm probably tagged in like 15 before and afters even to this day," she explained. These authentic transformations became the most powerful marketing tool imaginable.

Crucially, only about 15% of Divi's revenue came from Jordan's direct audience. The other 85% came from people who discovered the brand through the organic network of before-and-afters, word-of-mouth, and people buying for their sisters, moms, husbands, and friends.

What worked was timing and market education. The "skinification of the scalp" was beginning to happen in beauty culture, but most people didn't understand scalp care as a daily routine the way they understood skincare. Divi was one of the only clean scalp serums on the market, and it arrived at exactly the moment people were starting to care about scalp health.

What also worked was authenticity. Jordan and her husband Danny had built their entire brand on being relatable—showing the messy, unglamorous reality of their lives alongside the polished moments. This same philosophy carried into Divi. The product worked because it solved a real problem for real people, and those real people weren't shy about showing the results.

The growth trajectory was explosive. In the first full year (2021), Divi did approximately $40 million in revenue. As of the interview, they were on track for 30-35% additional growth.

Divi has evolved beyond the original scalp serum into a broader haircare brand. What's remarkable is that it succeeded without the traditional influencer playbook: huge paid ad campaigns, celebrity endorsements, or massive direct promotions from Jordan's platform. Instead, it grew through the power of transformation and community.

Jordan reflected on what made this different from other creator-led businesses. She and Danny had considered launching a clothing line (given Danny's family background in the fashion wholesale business) but chose not to. They were inspired by the Kardashians' ecosystem approach—building multiple complementary businesses—but wanted to do something distinct. The scalp care product felt authentic to Jordan's lived experience in a way that fashion wouldn't have been.

Today, Divi stands as a case study in product-market fit achieved through vulnerability, not vanity. Jordan's willingness to share her hair loss, her struggle, and her solution created a permission structure for thousands of other women to do the same. In doing so, she built a $40M business in her first year by simply serving the people who needed what she had created.