How Alicia Grande Built a Beauty Empire with $25K in Savings

Superwomen with Rebecca Minkoff

Rebecca Minkoff

Society & Culture

4.8 • 543 Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

She faced COVID, cancer, and closing the biggest deal of her life… all at once. Alicia Grande, founder and CEO of Grande Cosmetics, built her beauty empire with grit, fearlessness, and a touch of scrappy brilliance. In this episode of Superwomen, Alicia shares the story behind GrandeLASH, how she turned her postpartum struggle into a category-defining product. From bootstrapping trade shows to landing Sephora and Ulta, Alicia’s journey is an example of perseverance. Tune in to hear how she stayed fearless in the face of overwhelming challenges, what she’s learned about balancing ambition with family, and the advice she wants every aspiring founder to know. Episode Guide: (00:00) Cozy up with Macy’s (02:39) Meet Alicia Grande, CEO of Grande Cosmetics (05:48) Her lash serum “aha” moment at a trade show (09:11) What it really means to bootstrap a business (10:11) The childhood survival skills that gave her grit (12:40) The work ethic of today’s generation (19:08) The moment she knew she made it (20:32) Creating a whole new category at Sephora (25:37) Surviving cancer, COVID, and a company sale Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Project Hail Mary is an extraordinary cinematic experience.
0:03.9	You're a great scientist, Dr. Grace.
0:05.6	The world is counting on you.
0:07.0	Starring Ryan Gosling.
0:08.3	So I met an alien.
0:09.8	Two worlds, one impossible mission.
0:12.3	We're going to save the stars.
0:13.8	Project Hail Mary.
0:14.9	Amaze, amaze, amaze.
0:16.2	Seat first March 14th and 15th in Cinemas Everywhere, March 19th.
0:20.0	I had the three Cs. COVID, cancer, and closing on the biggest deal of my life.
0:26.1	It was quite stressful.
0:28.0	I needed to be like fearless, armored up, and nothing could get through to break me because
0:34.3	everything was always coming at me.
0:36.1	Today's guest is Alicia Grande, the founder of Grande Cosmetics.
0:40.1	Not only has she changed and upended an entire industry, she has saved my lashes many a time.
0:45.6	I ended up meeting a chemist who created a formula that said that it would enhance my own lashes.
0:51.7	I had postpartum lash loss, and I knew at that moment when it actually worked, I said,
0:58.2	this is, like Oprah would say, the aha moment for me to just go for it.
1:03.5	We discussed today a really pivotal moment when she had to make a shift from her career
1:08.1	she had embarked on into what became her empire.
1:11.6	I quadrupled my investment that weekend.
	...

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