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Amika is quietly becoming the kind of American business story conservatives should cheer: a scrappy, privately built brand that now says it will do about $250 million in revenue this year and is poised to expand dramatically through a new distribution deal with Ulta. This is the kind of growth that comes from listening to customers, not chasing corporate virtue signals or fashionably imposed agendas from on high.
Chelsea Riggs, who found her first job with the company on Craigslist and rose from first employee to CEO, embodies the bootstrapped hustle too many in Washington and big media seem to forget still exists in America. Her trajectory — becoming CEO officially in recent years after years of hands-on work — is a reminder that merit and grit still build real companies.
What the Forbes conversation makes clear is that Amika didn’t get here by pandering to insiders; it built real loyalty through repeat customers and salon professionals who actually use the products. That pro-consumer approach helped make Perk Up Dry Shampoo and the brand’s mask staples, and it pushed Amika into the top ranks of the market through honest word-of-mouth rather than manufactured hype.
That didn’t stop a cohort of establishment haircare insiders from grumbling when Amika made unconventional early moves. Good — let them grumble. Too often the same gatekeepers try to control what customers should want, and when an outsider offers better value and a better product, the elites’ indignation reveals who was protecting rent-seeking arrangements, not consumers.
The Ulta rollout is the free-market payoff for that strategy: more availability, more competition, and better prices for everyday shoppers instead of keeping desirable products locked behind closed door salon networks. Riggs’s public insistence on focus over FOMO is a lesson conservatives ought to celebrate — a clear rebuke to the trend-chasing culture that worships novelty over substance.
There’s a line in the coverage that rings true for every entrepreneur and investor: by the time most people hear about a trend, it’s probably too late to profit from it. That’s practical wisdom, not trendy sermonizing, and it underscores why America’s future belongs to builders who study fundamentals, serve customers, and don’t chase every shiny thing the media tells them to.
If you believe in American industry, support brands that grow because they deliver real value to working families and salon pros — not because they passed some focus-group purity test from an industry insider committee. Amika’s story is a reminder that when entrepreneurs are left to compete, consumers win, jobs are created, and freedom of choice beats gatekeeping every time.
