The Lia Soap

Stacy Hamalis was burning out. Making over $150,000 a year as a consultant for a global firm, she was constantly traveling between London, Chicago, and Brussels. But the money couldn't buy what she needed: fulfillment. She'd always had an entrepreneurial spirit—it ran in the family—and one moment of clarity changed everything. She noticed the natural skincare market was growing at 10% annually and was expected to hit $22 billion by 2024. People were finally asking what was in their skincare products, just like they'd started questioning their food. That was her opening.

Stacy didn't just quit and hope for the best. She'd been saving for years, building a cushion that could support her fixed expenses for "a few years" thanks to stock shares from her corporate employer. She took the plunge and moved to Greece, where she trained under a retired chemist to learn the secrets of traditional soap making. Her first product was a simple bar soap made with high-quality organic Greek olive oil and natural ingredients—nothing like the chemical-laden, animal-fat-based soaps dominating the market. Production cost her about $2 per bar; she retailed them for $9.

She didn't skimp on packaging. While other soap makers just wrapped their products carelessly, Stacy invested heavily in beautiful packaging and branding. "You need to make it appealing to people," she explains. "You need to invest in a good website and social media." That investment added up fast.

Stacy's first customers came through face-to-face contact in Greece. People could see the product, smell it, touch it. But the real acceleration happened when she moved back to Chicago. "A lot of people didn't want products shipped from Greece," she realized. She started doing local events every month, meeting other businesses interested in wholesale, and building direct relationships. Repeat customers started coming back—not just for the soap, but because it *worked*. By her 12-month mark, she'd made about $10,000 in sales.

Expanding the product line proved critical. In October, Stacy launched body oils retailing for $25 (costing $6 to produce), packed with anti-aging ingredients like rose hip oil. The new SKU immediately boosted sales by 30%. She was now offering customers a complete skincare line: soaps, oils, candles, and body balms. By month 18, she'd crossed $20,000 in revenue across the six-month period—putting her on track for 4x year-over-year growth. She'd sold over 2,000 bars of soap and had 200 body oil units moving, with repeat customers ordering from all over the world: London, Brussels, Greece, the US, Peru.

The lesson she'd learned in consulting proved invaluable: "You have to put money in to make money." Stacy had invested between $50,000-$60,000 of her own equity and inventory into the business. While some might see those early losses as wasteful, she saw them as necessary fuel for growth. Most startups struggle for 2-3 years; The Lia Soap was already profitable and scaling fast.