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1. Big plans: SARELLY is a clean beauty brand based in Mexico, which has expanded to the U.S. with the goal of becoming the #1 beauty line for Hispanic Gen Zers, which is a $50 billion category.
2. Digital heavyweight: Anny Sarelly, one of the brand’s co-founders, is a premier beauty blogger with a social-media following of more than 5 million.
3. Direct-to-community: For the first two years, SARELLY was available strictly through its own Shopify site, but is now branching out. The company entered the U.S. market last year, it recently opened its fifth retail store in Mexico and it now has partnerships with retail titans like Sephora, Ulta Beauty and Costco.
4. TikTok test case: Sarelly had more than $1 million in sales over its first months on TikTok Shop US, using the data to inform its retail plans.
5. Product hierarchy: By identifying a signature product in Long Cow Lashes Waterproof Mascara, SARELLY has created a signature style that embodies the spirit, sensibility and sense of humor of not just the brand, but the Hispanic Gen Z community.
SARELLY is a bootstrapped company with big goals, seeking to become the first choice for Hispanic Gen Zers. It is a social-media driven brand, using to TikTok Shop to drive sales and to inform the retail strategy it is pursuing first in Mexico and now in the U.S. As you read about how Remi has steered his company’s growth as CEO, it’s clear how SARELLY’s approach to CX has both been informed by and reinforces the company’s mission of embodying the culture, energy and beauty of Mexico.
Remi Martini is the CEO and co-founder of SARELLY.
Anna Sarelly is a premier beauty blogger in Mexico and she co-founded this beauty company in 2023 along with Remi Martini. The company was strictly direct-to-consumer the first two years, relying heavily on TikTok Shop, to fuel its early growth. It has now established partnerships with retail heavyweights like Sephora, Ulta Beauty and Costco and competes with brands like Rhode and Rare Beauty. The company closed a $3 million seed round in 2025, which was led by Wollef, a leading venture-capital firm based in Mexico.
Remi is from France, and he worked in the United States, UK, Brazil and Italy before arriving in Mexico 10 years ago. His adventures in entrepreneurship go back to when he was still in business school (HEC Paris), co-founding a company called DandyBlog that started as a digital publication on products and trends, but grew into a subscription service (DandyBox) that delivered a monthly sampling of high-end products.
In 2020, Remi became co-founder of Artemio, a fashion product studio that pairs emerging brands with top influencers to find product-market fit and maximize the brand’s potential.
“I want to show the world that Mexico is the best thing that happened to me,” Remi says. “I think everyone needs a bit of that Mexican spicy energy in their life. I made it my life purpose to share that beauty and spiciness to the world.”
As a company founded in a post-COVID world, it seemed natural to have SARELLY’s team to work remotely. That’s especially true because of the company’s emphasis on Gen Z both in terms of customers and workers.
The company has a small office, but it’s more of a marketing studio, but with 40 employees and plans to reach 100 by the end of 2026, Remi is building a central office to serve as a headquarters.
“One of the biggest challenges we have for next year: our company culture,” Remi says. “It’s what makes us very unique and that has been translated into a lot of things we do, and it needs to be even more strengthened now.”
The approach to customer experience starts with efficient operations: on-time delivery and returns with no questions asked.
But Remi emphasized that it’s important for everything from the business funnel to the decor of retail locations to reflect the company’s Mexican roots.
“In everything we do, we celebrate Mexican culture, creativity, colors, humor,” he says. “In every touchpoint, our customers experience that unique way of life.”
SARELLY’s starting point has always been clear.
“First and foremost, having a very good product,” Remi says. “I think investing in your physical product makes a lot of sense.”
SARELLY has established a firm product hierarchy. The Long Cow Lash Waterproof Mascara is a signature line that is specifically designed for Latinas. Even the product’s name draws on grandmotherly humor, as abuelas often joke about Latinas having pestaña de vaca.
Similarly, the undertones of SARELLY’s makeup products are designed with an eye toward the different skin tones of Latinas.
All of this makes SARELLY not so much a direct-to-consumer brand as direct-to-community.
“Today, any successful brand in our industry of makeup and cosmetics,” Remi says, “is a brand that understands their target very well and leverages their communities to make them better, to make them grow.”
There was a problem with one of SARELLY’s first makeup products. Well, not a problem with the product so much as the packaging, which was created with a completely custom mold.
Anna Sarelly, the co-founder, turned it into a piece of social-media content, which didn’t celebrate the mix-up, but did acknowledge what happened. The result was a viral piece of content.
“Some of those videos reached up to 10 million views and a million likes,” Remi says, “because we just give you the behind the scenes of, ‘We're not perfect, but we listen to you.’ “
What is the No. 1 tool or thing that you couldn't live without? “Even though my team moved to Notion, I still have a Trello board for everything. My personal life, my life as a CEO, everything I do is on a Trello board.”
What is the most important quality you look for in new hires? “The purpose. Why do they join us? In our case, we want to reach a whole generation of Hispanic Gen Zers. We want to create a safe place for them so I would look for people that share that purpose and want to be part of that story.”
What is the last book you read that you’d love to share with the world? “ ‘Walking Backwards.’ I thought I already knew a lot about Amazon. It's very common that they talk about ‘the bar raiser’ or the way they prepare for their meetings. But I actually learned a lot of insight from the book. Another book, which is very famous, is ‘Shoe Dog,’ the autobiography of the Nike founder Phil Knight.”
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