Desi Perkins spent the 2010s as one of the internet’s most trusted beauty creators. When she launched her eyewear brand, DEZI, in 2020, she didn’t do it by raising a round of funding or taking on a partner—she did it by quietly saving years’ worth of brand-deal income, which she used to bet on herself. The gamble paid off fast: DEZI sold out its initial stock on day one and hit $2.5 million in sales within 24 hours—then topped $3.6 million at its first restock. But a viral sell-out creates its own set of problems, and Desi had to learn the operational side of the business in real time. Here, she breaks down how she funded the launch herself, why she hired consultants instead of winging it, and the failures that taught her how to actually read her customers.
On designing eyewear instead of makeup:
The most natural move would’ve been makeup, but I had a beauty non-compete. I’d signed on as an Ipsy creator—my first big paid social opportunity—and that meant I couldn’t take any outside beauty deals. So when a collaboration came up outside of beauty, I jumped on it. Before makeup, I’d actually taken design classes. I always wanted to design—I pictured clothing, never eyewear, but this was still really cool.
They came to me with frames ready to go and said I could pick the colors and lenses. I asked if I could design my own instead. They said yes. I sketched it out, my husband, Steven, helped me put it in Photoshop, and it became their bestselling sunglasses— we saw $7M in sales in the first twelve minutes, and the glasses became the number two top seller across Nordstrom accessories, competing against all these established brands. I believe it’s still their number one to this day.
Up until then, I hadn’t sold anything. I had no idea I could sell anything. I was just at my house creating and uploading, and the only metric I had was my community and the engagement in the comments. When the site crashed and everything sold out, it told me I had an audience that actually wanted to show up and support.
On treating her content career as a brand so she could self-fund:
Long before I ever thought about the brand, I knew I wanted to invest in myself. So I treated my content creation—me as a beauty guru, as an influencer—as a brand. Everything I made from those deals, everything from my collaborations—and I’d had collaborations outside of eyewear too—I just saved. I always knew I was going to invest it back into myself one day down the line. So I self-financed everything myself.
On refusing to launch at scale “not knowing what I’m doing”:
The first thing was, where do we start? There’s just a mountain of things to do, and so much to building a business that I, quite frankly, didn’t know.
What helped was having a good network to talk to. I’m fortunate to have friends who are founders, Steven had friends, and we met with a lot of people and asked for advice for a long time. Learning before starting is so smart—talk to whoever you can, anyone who’s already run a business.
We chose to bring on consultants, because I didn’t want to launch something this major at scale and just not know what I’m doing. Because of the size of my following, I knew I couldn’t start small. I had to launch at scale, and that was scary. So I wanted someone who’d already worked in the industry to help get us to market.
On the launch day that hit $2.5 million in 24 hours:
When we first announced the brand, we didn’t post about what it was. We just launched the Instagram account—no pictures, nothing telling people what we were selling. The first day, that account alone got 300,000 followers. Nobody knew what I was selling or what was happening.
Right before launching, it was peak pandemic, nobody was going outside, and I was so stressed. I’d put off the launch for a while because it didn’t feel like the right time, and I was scared, because I’d put all my money into this and it was just sitting there. Eventually, Steven and I looked at each other and said, We do have to launch.
We sold out on day one. We did $2.5 million in a single day, which I did not anticipate. Steven and I cried—we sat in the bathroom, and I have a picture of both of us with tears in our eyes. It’s a huge risk to take on yourself, and we had no idea.
On why selling out is both a good and a bad problem:
Selling out is exciting, and from the outside it creates hype—people see you as a brand that’s always sold out. But you also don’t make money after that.
We couldn’t restock for three months, because we didn’t expect to sell out of everything, and it’s about a three-month lead time to get anything back in. So we had three months of just trying to get new inventory. Then at restock we sold over $3.6 million. It was a very surreal moment.
On the color that “will haunt me forever”:
You really feel your founder hat when you start to have not only successes, but failures. I’d think something was going to do really well—and then it turns out people don’t like the colors mint and jade. That color will haunt me forever.
You think something will do well and it just doesn’t, and you’re always learning from your customers. You need those failures to understand who you’re selling to and how to pivot. That’s the number one thing I’ve learned: There are always going to be problems, and you just have to pivot. You can’t live in the problem—it’ll take you down.
A big one was order quantities. At first I’d just order the same amount of a lot of different things. Now I think in terms of A, B, and C—what’s going to do really, really well, and what’s more of a nice-to-have. Even if it’s a design I really believe in, if it’s not as easily wearable, I might order less.
On building a brand that outlives her:
Last year I set a goal that people won’t necessarily know I own the eyewear brand. It’s not that I want to be far removed—it’s that I want there to be a world where it exists without me having to be the one propelling it. I want it to be a business on its own.
Collaborations are a big part of that. We did a really big one with Monet McMichael, who brought in a totally different audience. That’s where collaborating really works for a business—you’re gaining new audiences that aren’t already yours.
I was at an industry dinner recently, and a younger girl next to me asked what I do. I said I own a couple of companies—I’m always saying the least. My friend jumped in and said, “She owns this really successful eyewear line, it’s called DEZI.” And the girl said, “You own DEZI? I love that brand.” My day was made, because that’s exactly what I wanted—for it to live beyond me.
Right now founder-led brands are having a moment, and that can feel trendy. So how do you survive past a trend? For me it comes down to authenticity—being honest, being real, having trust with your customers. You can have a huge following, but that doesn’t mean you’ll have sales. Someone might make a first purchase because they follow you and love you, but if the product isn’t good, or the experience isn’t good, they won’t come back. And then you don’t have a brand.
Hear Desi’s full conversation on Shopify Masters for the paper-doll lesson from her mom that taught her to figure anything out, why she launched DEZI Skin with a single SKU built for her own hyperpigmentation, and how she chose boundaries over balance as a founder and mom.