Courtney Shields and the car TikToks that sold out DIBS

The sellout did not happen on set. It happened in a parked car after the set went quiet, when Courtney Shields filmed three TikToks on her phone and watched 4.7 million views turn two sticks into a waitlist.

It is useful to start there, in the car, because that is where DIBS Beauty makes the most sense. Courtney Shields had spent a decade building community in Austin as an influencer, talking through routines in real bathrooms and real light. Jeff Lee had an MBA from Stanford and a J.D. from Yale, five years on Wall Street as a corporate attorney, then a turn as president of a production company. They met through Tula co founders Dan Reich and Ken Landis, who backed the launch. She knew what busy faces actually do. He knew how to structure a business. Neither knew, yet, what would move at retail.

The brand launched in September 2021 with two SKUs, the Status Stick highlighter and the Desert Island Duo blush and bronzer. The promise was printed plainly on the site. Multitasking beauty, made easy. High performance, multi use makeup that blends with fingers, stick or brush, with no rules and no wrong way. Vegan and cruelty free by design, talc free, without parabens, sulfates, phthalates and gluten. By March 2023 Lee said the company had grossed 4.5 million dollars in a little over a year and reached continuous profitability the prior quarter. Then came the first retail deal, Ulta, in 592 doors plus online.

What Gloss Report noticed, scrolling the grids and the Ulta reviews, is the discipline underneath the ease. Dual ended sticks with playful shade names, baked domes, creator shade grids that show the color on more than one undertone. The Desert Island Duo remains the number one seller, with Bustle, Health and Real Simple awards on the page. That tells a buyer something. Payoff here means color delivered in one swipe. Finish means how it sits, dewy or soft matte. Wear time means how it looks at hour eight. DIBS wins when payoff is high, finish stays skin like, and the shade logic is clear enough to buy without a swatch.

You filmed those three TikToks from your car at Miami Swim Week after a pro campaign fell flat, they pulled 4.7 million views and sold out the early stock, so what did that night teach you about what your customer believes from you versus from a polished shoot.

Courtney: I still think about that hotel blanket story Jeff tells, him staring at the ceiling wondering if he had made the wrong call. I remember it from the other side. The polished plan was not landing and I thought, Jeff, I got this. I went to the car because the light was honest and I could talk the way I always talked to my community. No script, no crew, just here is the stick, here is where it goes, here is what it looks like up close.

What it taught me is that trust is the formula. My customer had watched me for ten years. She knew when I was tired, when I was rushing, when I liked something enough to repurchase it. A campaign can show aspiration. It cannot show blendability on a real cheek at 6 p.m. in Miami humidity. Those videos worked because people saw fingers, not retouching. They saw a blush and bronzer duo go on in under a minute and still look like skin.

I cannot plug DIBS alone, and I mean that. The community plugs it with me when the product earns it. That night gave us permission to stay simple. Fewer steps, dual ends, names you remember. If it does not work in a car mirror, it does not launch.

Jeff, you have said you came in thinking you had a lot to teach Courtney about business after Stanford, Yale and Wall Street, and learned the reverse, so where did that show up first in how you built DIBS.

Jeff: It showed up in the first month, in the way Courtney made decisions. I had gotten an MBA from Stanford and a J.D. from Yale, worked five years on Wall Street as a corporate attorney, and was president of a production company. I came in with frameworks. She came in with pattern recognition from a decade of comments, DMs and returns. I thought I would teach her business. Instead, I learned that Courtney had a lot to teach me.

The clearest example was product focus. I wanted analysis. She wanted to solve the morning. Two SKUs. A Status Stick for face and body sheen, and a Desert Island Duo for blush and bronzer. Swipe, blend, go. My instinct was to broaden. Her instinct was to narrow until the reorder told us to widen. She was right. Restock means a second order from retail after the first sells through. Reorder is what the customer does when she finishes or wants another shade. Both pointed to the Duo.

She also coached me on feedback. My style was direct. There is no nonsense in how I talk. She would say, you should have taken that conversation offline, or even though you did not name the person, everyone knew who it was, and what was the learning for the group. Our handbook now says we do not pay people to agree with us. We praise on Slack every month. We use an open faced sandwich, strength, gap, then how can you grow from here. Performance versus potential. It made us faster because people tell the truth earlier.

You launched with only Status Stick and Desert Island Duo, which the site still calls what put DIBS on the map and the number one seller, so why did a dual ended blush and bronzer stick become the anchor instead of the highlighter.

Courtney: Because it answered the whole face in one tool. The Duo is creamy, buildable, streak free, with mango seed butter, jojoba oil, hyaluronic acid and vanillin, allergy and dermatologist tested. You swipe bronzer on forehead, nose, cheekbones and jawline, blush on the apples, blend with the Duo Brush or fingers. That is payoff you can control. Sheer if you tap, stronger if you layer. Transfer means how much moves onto clothes or phones. This one sets enough to stay but keeps a skin finish.

The Status Stick is beloved, oversized, award winning, face and body. It gives that skin enhancing sheen. But highlighter is interpretive. Some want glass, some want a whisper. Blush and bronzer are need. They bring shape and warmth back, especially if you wear base or sunscreen that flattens tone. The Duo also photographed well across undertones, which matters when you sell online. Cool undertone means pink or red beneath, warm means golden or peach, neutral sits between. We named shades in pairs like Out of Office and Vacay Vibes, You Do You and Mood Boost, so you shop by mood and depth, not by a number that means nothing.

It became the anchor because artists used it too. Backstage, kit means the working set an artist carries. A dual end that does cheeks and warms the lids and even the lip edge earns kit space. Once it was in kits and in cars, the sell through followed.

Ulta put you in 592 doors plus online for your first retail deal, which is a lot of real estate for a young brand, so what had to change in shade range, sampling and education to sell through and not just sell in.

Jeff: Sell in is getting retail to buy your stock. Sell through is getting the customer to take it home. Doors means store count. We knew 592 doors would expose every gap, so we prepared like operators, not just founders.

First, shade range. A range means the full set of depths and undertones. A shade extension adds depths later. We launched tight, then widened where the data pointed, because a tight range that sells is better than a wide range that confuses. We invested in creator shade grids, the same Duo on several skin tones in daylight, so a shopper could find her near match. Swatch discipline mattered. No filters that shift warmth.

Second, sampling. Sticks are hard to sample hygienically, so the back of hand swipe plus the face chart mattered. We trained on two minute education. Where bronzer goes, where blush goes, how to blend with fingers if you forgot the brush. The Duo Brush earned its place there. It is dense enough to diffuse cream without eating it.

Third, reorders. We watched which shade pairs restocked first by region. That told us where to add depth versus where to add brightness. Ulta gave us scale. The car videos gave us conversion language. Simple, fast, no wrong way. That sentence sold more units than any display copy.

If it does not work in a car mirror, it does not launch.

Courtney Shields and Jeff Lee

Your formulas lean on mango butter, shea, jojoba and hyaluronic acid in sticks and jojoba, macadamia, squalane and peptides in baked powders, all vegan, cruelty free and talc free, so how do you brief a lab for cream payoff that still layers without pilling over sunscreen.

Courtney: I brief by behavior, not by buzzword. I want one swipe payoff, finger blend in thirty seconds, second layer without lifting the first. Pilling means the little balls you get when silicone, sunscreen and cream fight. To avoid it, we keep the emollient load balanced. Mango butter and shea for slip, jojoba for blend, hyaluronic acid for that cushioned look. Then we test over three sunscreens, not one, because that is real life.

For baked formulas, the baked dome is a slurry baked on a tile, which gives a silkier press and a gradient marbling. We use jojoba and macadamia oils for glide, 3 percent squalane in powder for slip without shine, peptides and coffee butter for comfort. Talc free matters to us. Talc is a soft mineral used for absorbency, but we get blur from other powders. Allergy and dermatologist tested, safe for sensitive skin, that claim has to be earned in testing, not marketing.

I am strict on finish. Dewy should read as hydrated, not wet. Shimmer should read as light return, not glitter. If a shimmer blush emphasizes texture at hour eight, we cut the particle size or we cut the shade. Wear time is decided in the last ten percent of development, the unsexy stability and compatibility work no one posts about.

Status Stick is oversized for face and body and GlowTour Duo pairs a shimmer blush with a creamy contour in seven shades like Starlit, so when do you want shimmer versus sheen, and where does contour still earn its place.

Courtney: Sheen is the Status Stick effect, a skin enhancing glow that looks like light on moisturized skin. Shimmer is GlowTour, pigment plus fine light reflective particles. Sheen goes anywhere light would naturally hit and anywhere you want limbs to look healthy, cheekbones, brow bone, shoulders, collarbones, shins. Blend and layer. Two thin passes beat one heavy pass. Shimmer blush goes on the apple and sweeps up, because the color and the light travel together.

Contour still earns its place when it is creamy and quick. The flick of a wrist line is real. You draw, you blend, you are done. Cream contour works under powder and over base if you keep the layer thin. Powder contour works if you want more definition in humidity. The mistake is shade, not format. Too grey reads ashy on warm skin, too warm reads muddy on cool skin. We built seven GlowTour pairs so you can pick the blush energy you want and get a contour depth that matches.

Backstage, I see artists use Status Stick on the body first, then tap the leftover on the face. Good light return reads expensive in photos. At retail, I tell shoppers to pick finish first, formula second. If you love glow, start with sheen. If you love color, start with shimmer blush.

Go To Glossy Balm at 24 dollars promises all shine with none of the stick and one swipe color, so what is the texture brief and where does it sit between gloss, balm and topper.

Courtney: The brief was comfort plus mirror. It had to give full shine, fine shimmer, no tack. Tack means that sticky pull when lips press. We cut tack but kept cushion, so it feels like a balm and looks like a gloss. One swipe gives sheer color you can build. Two swipes give that jelly look. It layers over liner and lipstick without dragging the base, which is why we call it a topper too. Topper means a sheer reflective layer worn over another lip color.

Dry down matters here. Dry down is what is left after the volatile shine settles. We did not want a dry down that stains unevenly or clings to dry patches. This one stays flexible, so it fades evenly. Sillage is a fragrance word for scent trail, but lips have their own version, the way shine reads across a room. This reads juicy at conversation distance, not glittery. Shade names like Favorite Child, Rock Candy, Orange Crush and Strawberry Summer tell you the intent. Fun, sheer, everyday. Keep it in the bag, reapply without a mirror. If you want precision, add our No Pressure Liner first, then tap balm in the center.

You report 4.5 million dollars in a little over a year, continuous profitability, EY Gulf South finalist in 2024 and Inc. 5000 in 2025, so what actually drove margin, inventory discipline or marketing leanness, and what would you do differently on shade depth.

Jeff: Margin came from focus. Two hero formats, sticks and baked, with shared components where possible. Fewer components mean better costs and fewer quality issues. Inventory discipline helped more than marketing leanness, though both helped. We chased reorders, not launches. A restock of a proven shade pair is lower risk than a new concept. Waitlist means demand exceeded supply for a period. Dupe means a cheaper close match shoppers compare you to. We would rather be the original that stays in stock than the viral moment that is gone in a week.

What would I do differently. I would extend depth earlier in select families. We heard from shoppers who loved the formula but could not find their contour depth or bronzer warmth. That is on us. A shade range stops three shades short when the deepest warm and the deepest cool are missing, or when the middle looks complete but the ends are thin. We are fixing that with deliberate extensions, not a flood. Each new depth has to pass the car mirror test, the sunscreen test and the hour eight check. Profitability gave us the room to do it right. We do not pay people to agree with us, so those gaps were named internally before they were named online. That is how it should work.

Closing note from the desk

What stays after this conversation is how clearly the division of labor holds. Shields reads the face and the feed in the same glance, Lee reads the sell through and the supply plan. She kept the routine to minutes, he kept the SKU count to what the factory and the floor could support. Neither romanticizes virality. The 4.7 million views are useful because they pointed to a real behavior, fingers on cream in daylight, not because they were loud.

DIBS set out to make multitasking beauty made easy, vegan and cruelty free, without a long routine. The Duo still carries that idea. The Status Stick gives the light, the balm gives the ease. The next test is range depth and door level execution, the unglamorous work that decides whether a good stick becomes a lasting brand.

Product spotlight

Status Stick, 38 dollars. An oversized face and body highlighting stick for a skin enhancing sheen. Swipe on high points of the face, collarbones or legs, then blend and layer with fingers or brush. Use sparingly over cream blush and bronzer, build where you want more light return.

Go To Glossy Balm, 24 dollars. A one swipe gloss balm with full shine and fine shimmer and no sticky feel. Wear alone for sheer juicy color or as a topper over liner or lipstick. Tap to reapply through the day, shades include Favorite Child and Strawberry Summer.