ICYMI

Hello! Hi! Bonjour HSR!

I am writing this to you from 35,000 feet on my connecting flight from London Heathrow to Nice, on my way to Cannes Lions, which I almost missed entirely.

A month ago I was not going. As of last week I do not have a free hour until Thursday. That is the version of spontaneity that apparently lives inside someone who spent years believing she was 100% type A, until she planned her own wedding and started traveling without her husband and realized that type A might be more of an aspiration than a personality trait. A solid mix of the two at best.

The plane is packed with creators and executives and everyone is taking pictures of everything. In what I can only assume is a very Cannes-specific British Airways announcement, the flight attendants actually had to come on the intercom and ask passengers to refrain from photographing other people, while confirming that meals, seats, and personal belongings were still fair game. I have to concur. My usual travel personality is full plane rotting, headphones in, do not speak to me, so bumping into people you know on an eleven hour flight is quite a different experience.

This trip came together fast and the week ahead is genuinely a lot. I’m so excited! I am hosting two lunches, speaking on three panels, doing video interviews, and somewhere in the middle of all of it, sitting down with the same person who structured Hailey Bieber's Chase Sapphire deal.

I am attending solo, without CJR or Katie, which feels significant in its own way. I am going with Steven Bartlett's team and the CEO of FlightStory, Georgie Holt, who is equal parts my HSR angel, my mentor, and the work wife I did not know I needed until she showed up in my life.

I am going to bring everything back to you. Every insight, every conversation worth having, every moment that feels like something the HSR community needs to know about. Consider this your press pass or my plus 1.

Maggie x

I was rejected by 50 VC firms for a job and I couldn't be more grateful. The funniest one? M13, the $2B firm my husband co-founded. And at the time, I thought success meant being chosen. By a VC firm. By a boss. By someone who could see my potential.

Then I realized something: the women I admired most weren't waiting for invitations. They were creating opportunities for themselves. That's why I started Hot Smart Rich. I was tired of being told I had to choose between beauty and business, ambition and femininity, success and relationships.

What started as a way to create my own opportunity has grown into a community of more than 350,000 women and opened doors I once spent years trying to force open. Last month, I spoke at Greycroft's Consumer Brands Summit alongside Chrissy Teigen and Michael Bosstick. Five years ago, I was dying to get into rooms like that.

What I learned is that once I stopped chasing the invitation and started building something of my own, the doors to those rooms started opening on their own.
That's why I'm excited to partner with Stan. They're helping creators and entrepreneurs turn their skills, experiences, and ideas into real businesses.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that nobody is coming to hand you the perfect opportunity. Stan helps you turn your knowledge, perspective, and lived experience into opportunity instead of waiting for someone else to create it for you.

In this conversation, I sit down with Laney Crowell, founder and CEO of Saie, to explore how she went from learning the inner workings of Estée Lauder to building one of the fastest-growing beauty brands in the world.

Laney shares the playbook most people never get access to: how beauty brands actually launch products, build retail partnerships, create demand, and turn marketing into a powerful growth engine. From becoming an early sponsor of the New York Knicks before their championship season to scaling Saie into a $100M+ brand and one of Sephora's standout success stories, she reveals how identifying overlooked opportunities can lead to extraordinary growth.

More than a conversation about beauty and business, this episode is a masterclass in spotting opportunities, building a brand with intention, and scaling on your own terms. If you're a founder, marketer, or someone building something ambitious, this is an episode you won't want to miss.

all the brands, people, places, things we’re gossiping about this week

Women’s Health & Beauty

Media, Entertainment & Creator

Consumer, E-Commerce & Retail

Tech, Business & Investing

How Morgan Riddle, Formula 1, and the NBA Revealed the Most Valuable Customer in Sports

When news broke that Morgan Riddle and Taylor Fritz had ended their relationship, most of the conversation focused on the breakup itself. After six years together, one of tennis's most recognizable couples was suddenly over, prompting the same questions that follow almost every high-profile split.

Who ended it? What happened? Who moves on first?

What interested me was something else entirely.

Unlike many women throughout history, Morgan wasn't facing a future where leaving meant starting over financially. By the time the relationship ended, she had already built a seven-figure creator business, a personal brand, and an audience that belonged entirely to her. The breakup may have closed one chapter, but it didn't threaten her livelihood. She wasn't walking away empty-handed. She was walking away with a business.