Small business takeaway
- Three scaling startups — a consumer puzzle brand, an invite-only shopping platform, and a turmeric skincare seller — show that winning customer acquisition-and-retention playbooks now combine earned brand visibility, tightly targeted audiences, and owned online and offline channels that drive repeat engagement and keep customers coming back. Puzzles of Color wins new customers through PR and key B2B partnerships, then retains them via TikTok Live, email, and a loyalty program. CAKE pairs hypertargeted ads with exclusivity and event-led community, and AMVital turns influencer and marketplace discovery into retention by moving customers onto its site with education-rich onboarding content.
Successful businesses pursue new customers while also making sure the ones they have keep coming back. But accomplishing both effectively with a startup’s limited time and resources is no easy feat.
As customer acquisition costs climb rapidly and consumer privacy changes make digital ads less effective, today’s startups are finding they have to get more creative with customer acquisition and retention to stand out and grow.
From telling the brand’s story often and communicating value with the intention of forming a cohesive community of customers and creating essential content, three very different scaling startups share with CO— the customer acquisition and retention strategies that are helping to drive their success.
Puzzles of Color: Sibling-founded jigsaw puzzle brand has leaned on PR, social media, a customer retention program, and strategic partnerships to grow and nurture its customer base
Siblings and lifelong puzzle enthusiasts Ericka Chambers and William Jones launched Puzzles of Color in 2020 to fill what they identified as a void: the lack of communities of color represented in high-quality, illustrated jigsaw puzzles.
“We did not see enough diversity in that space,” Chambers said.
When the siblings started out, they mounted puzzle pieces on cardboard and cut and packaged puzzles in Chambers’ garage. Now, the company produces around two dozen puzzles, has some 35,000 customers, and saw 23% sales growth from 2024 to 2025. Puzzles include one honoring the overlooked history of Black cowboys. Products are sold at big retailers, including Macy’s, Nordstrom, and Walmart’s e-commerce sites, and in Barnes & Noble stores and online.
She recommends working with a PR company aligned with your brand’s industry. Their current firm specializes in toys. 'Hone in on that specific expert who can help,' Chambers said.
To build a customer base, “We’ve pretty much consistently focused on public relations,” said Chambers, with their PR company, Chic Execs’ help. CBS Mornings picked up a TV segment the brand appeared in on its local CBS affiliate in 2020. The brand has also actively pursued coverage in print publications.
“We were really able to attain a lot of following that way, and we’ve been able to maintain it through engagement on social media and with email,” Chambers said. She recommends working with a PR company aligned with your brand’s industry. For example, early on, the startup found less traction when it worked with a PR firm specializing in beauty. Their current firm specializes in toys. “Hone in on that specific expert who can help,” Chambers said.
Last year, the siblings started hosting TikTok Live sessions to build their customer base. At first, their strategy was to show a puzzle and talk about the art and the artist. They still take that approach, but they’ve added content featuring their families piecing together puzzles. They also talk about puzzle difficulty and give puzzle tips.
“We do a lot of sibling content because we’re a family and a silly bunch,” said Chambers. “It’s also about catching and building onto trending videos.” She has found success by dedicating one or two full days to content creation, filming videos in bulk that are released over subsequent months.
The startup also launched a customer retention program. Customers share their birthday and earn loyalty points with every purchase. “It’s been very successful,” Chambers said. “Last year, our big push was retail,” she added. “We did so many trade shows.” This year, to add more customers, the focus is on partnerships.
For example, the brand created a custom puzzle for the Josiah Henson Museum gift shop in Bethesda, Maryland. “Because we now have the ability to do custom puzzles, we want to work with brands and associations,” Chambers said.
Email marketing is also a tried-and-true method to engage with customers. “We do see a spike of orders every time we send out an email,” said Chambers. “But don’t waste your customers’ time. If you send an email, make sure it’s something they care to hear about.”
The brand also attends at least two events a month, including state fairs and festivals, to meet potential customers in person and see which products they gravitate toward. “From there, we ask people to follow us on social media or join our mailing list so that we can continue engaging with them beyond that encounter,” Chambers said.
[Read more: How 3 Founders Turned Pitch Competitions and Accelerator Programs Into Growth Engines]
CAKE: Catering to premium fashion and beauty lovers via hypertargeted digital ads, members-only private sales, and in-person events
Entrepreneurs Estelle Palandjian and former WeWork exec Dave McLaughlin co-founded private membership shopping community CAKE for women who love premium fashion and beauty products, plus the high-end brands that want to reach them.
The invite-only community with a $100 annual fee gives members early access to new releases, the ability to shop special private sales, and access to exclusive in-person events. Partner brands get access to high-intent shoppers with spending power. It’s an alternative way for brands to acquire new customers and build loyalty.
“As today’s shoppers distribute their spend more, it’s harder to be rewarded in the marketplace, and we really thought there was an opportunity to give the consumer a treatment she hadn’t been getting,” said McLaughlin. At the same time, “brands have an existential need to capture customers’ attention when there’s unlimited choice. Our vision is we’re reinventing premium online shopping.”
CAKE’s core strategy for attracting and retaining customers is its invite-only structure and upfront membership fee, which establishes commitment, a strong sense of consumer belonging, and a predictable relationship with its some 10,000 customers, almost half of whom are in New York. The brand curates influencerlike events and experiences, alongside brand partners, that feature high-end, sought-after goody bags that keep customers intrigued and engaged. Members also appreciate access to perks like a free facial, fitness classes, or nail treatments.
“The consumer we’re serving wants shopping to be fun,” McLaughlin said. “It’s really important that it doesn’t feel like a transactional mechanism. It’s really a lifestyle. Our events are small, and they fill up in an instant.” Recently, CAKE hosted a book launch at the Freda Salvador store in SoHo for members. The popular event featured special guest and CAKE member Stacy London.
CAKE has also ramped up digital ads. McLaughlin is pleased with how effectively targeted ads have helped the startup acquire the kind of customer CAKE wants: women ages 25 to 55 with income to spend on fashion but limited time. Members can see anonymized purchases made by other members too. It’s a source of inspiration, said McLaughlin.
McLaughlin says success has come with focusing on a distinct type of consumer “and learning how to delight her. We want to have a tight consumer focus, to be laser-focused on customers who feel delight around fashion and shopping and deliver on that.”
Its methods are paying off. In just over a year, CAKE has raised a $5 million seed round, partnered with over one hundred brands across fashion, beauty, and home, including Veronica Beard and Favorite Daughter, and driven more than $3 million in revenue back to brand partners, according to McLaughlin.
[Read more: Seasonal Brands From Ocean Spray to The Elf on the Shelf Pivot to Stoke Year-Round Sales]
AMVital: To court and keep customers, the beauty startup partnered with TikTok influencers and established brand equity as a turmeric skincare expert — landing placement on Walmart Marketplace
Growing up in India, Amar Behura saw his grandmother use turmeric for a wide variety of ailments — everything from the common cold to dry, irritated skin.
During the pandemic, Behura became interested in the spice and wanted to bring its benefits to consumers. He worked with a chemist on a formula that wouldn’t cause staining from turmeric’s bright yellow color and launched a turmeric soap on Amazon. Now, he’s the Founder and CEO of skincare brand AMVital.
Behura has leaned on social media to attract and retain customers. Early on, he began working with beauty and skincare influencers on TikTok and also selling through the social media site. “A few videos went viral, and we sold a lot of products that way,” Behura said. One video got nearly 3 million views and another around 2 million. “The influencers had good content,” he said. The soap sold out.
Behura then began using AMVital’s website as the primary spot to interact with customers and build brand visibility. As the business grew, Behura added products over the next few years, from a turmeric cleanse to a serum and cleansing pads, selling 20 products today.
Early customer feedback helped Behura realize the brand needed to develop specialized content around its products to help consumers effectively use them. For example, “We realized early on that customers were not giving enough time for the product to work,” he said.
Now when a customer makes a purchase, they receive a series of emails explaining how the products work, what to expect from them, and a timeline. AMVital has made over 300 YouTube videos, and it posts blog content on its website.
“The idea is to educate customers about skincare so we can have authority in that content,” Behura said.
To attract customers, Behura isn’t prioritizing placement on shelves in beauty supply stores, where “the margin is very thin,” he said. “We think if you want to grow to a multimillion-dollar brand, online is a much easier way to do it than working with small offline stores.”
Behura’s customer acquisition and retention strategies have taken him from $200,000 in revenue his first year to $1 million in the second. This year, revenue is projected at $4 to $5 million. The brand’s Turmeric Kojic Acid Soap Bar has achieved No. 1-ranked status on Walmart Marketplace, and it’s a TikTok Gold Star Seller.
“My recommendation is really to use marketplaces as discovery or for brand awareness. Products are discovered on sites like Amazon, but then your long-term business is really built on your website.”
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