When I sold my company earlier this year, I can’t tell you how many people asked me, “How did you do it?”

I think it was our products. I think it was our sales. But the thing that made Erin’s Faces truly special — the thing I believe helped us stand out — was our connection to our community.

The heart behind the brand

We had great formulas I was genuinely proud of, and we had steady sales to match. Those things matter — a lot.

But underneath that was something harder to create in a digital, DTC e-commerce world: the connection people felt with our brand.

From the very beginning, I wanted our customers to see themselves reflected in what we made and how we showed up. To me, that meant showing real people — different ages, skin tones, and body types — on our feed. Not because it was trendy or strategic, but because that’s who our community actually was.

I built my business in women’s living rooms across the country. I literally knew almost everyone who was a client in those early years — or I met them at a market. We included a thank-you note in every single order we ever shipped. That mattered to people, because they weren’t just order numbers — they were people.

We answered DMs, emails, and comments with thoughtful replies — not copy-paste responses or AI bots. We sent congratulations cards to clients who got married, because we knew they were getting married — they’d written to us about their wedding makeup. We sent cards for new babies, sometimes little gifts, because they’d reached out with pregnancy skincare questions. During wildfires or floods, we mailed care packages to customers in those regions just to say we were thinking of them.

We loved our clients.

And that love, that connection, became part of the fabric of the brand.

When people care about what you’re creating — when they’ve seen you show up with integrity, humor, and heart — they don’t just buy from you. They root for you.

Why it mattered

When Earth Harbor looked at Erin’s Faces, they saw a company that had already built trust — not just with customers, but with the community around it.

When people truly love a brand, that love is worth something. It’s the difference between a company people buy from and a company people believe in.

You can’t fake that. You can’t buy it with ad spend. You earn it — slowly, intentionally, and sometimes by doing things that don’t make perfect business sense on paper.

You can build that kind of connection at any stage of your business. You don’t need a huge audience, a ton of money, or a perfect marketing plan. You just need to care — really care — about the people you’re serving.

Show them they matter. Let them see themselves in your brand. Be willing to laugh, to share the behind-the-scenes, to show up like a human being who’s not perfect all the time.

Because great products create sales — but great connection creates staying power.

And that, in my opinion, is what made my brand the most valuable — and ultimately, what sold it.