Lumea Skincare: AED 0 to AED 1.2M/month in 11 months

Lumea is a clean-beauty D2C skincare brand founded by a former dermatology consultant. The product was excellent — early customers were loyal, repeat rates were strong. But the founder, juggling 14 different roles, had no time to build the marketing infrastructure to scale.

When we started, the brand was doing AED 30K/month with no paid spend. The Shopify store was a free theme. There was no email program. The Instagram account had 800 followers. Yet the unit economics were healthy: ~60% gross margin, AED 380 AOV, 38% repeat rate.

We were brought in to be the outsourced growth team.

Month one: foundation. New Shopify build optimised for conversion (mobile-first, sub-2-second load, 12 CRO patterns from our e-commerce playbook). Klaviyo set up with welcome flow, post-purchase, browse abandonment, and a winback. Email/SMS list building incentives.

Month two-three: scaling paid. Meta and TikTok ads, founder-led creative (the dermatologist explaining her own products carried far better than studio content), iterating creative weekly. By month three, we were at AED 280K/month at 4.2x ROAS.

Month four onwards: compounding. We layered in influencer and creator partnerships (paid, not gifted), ramped up content production (3-4 short-form videos per week), and launched a customer-loyalty program. Email/SMS revenue grew from 8% to 24% of total.

We also expanded internationally — opening Saudi Arabia and Kuwait shipping via a logistics partnership, then layering paid campaigns into those markets.

Services delivered

Eleven months in, Lumea was running at AED 1.2M/month. Shopify conversion: 2.1% (industry average for skincare DTC: 1.4%). Average order value up to AED 510. Repeat rate steady at 42%.

More importantly: the brand is profitable. Margins held throughout the growth because we never sacrificed unit economics for scale.