Building Beyond Beauty
What does it take to build a business that not only disrupts an industry but also creates meaningful social change?
For Jenn Harper, founder and CEO of Cheekbone Beauty, entrepreneurship has never been solely about selling products. It has been about building something deeply personal: a company rooted in identity, purpose, sustainability, and long-term systems change.
In a recent conversation on the ONSIDE podcast, Harper shared the story behind building one of Canada’s most recognizable Indigenous-owned beauty brands, while offering powerful lessons for entrepreneurs navigating the realities of scaling a business.
Here are some of the biggest takeaways from her journey.
Entrepreneurship
Can Become a
Path to Personal Healing
For Harper, building Cheekbone Beauty was deeply intertwined with her own personal journey of reconnecting with her Indigenous identity.
Growing up feeling disconnected from her Ojibwe heritage while navigating mixed cultural identities, she spent years struggling with belonging. Through building Cheekbone Beauty, she began reconnecting with her roots and understanding how culture could become a source of strength rather than something to hide.
That personal journey ultimately shaped the foundation of the company.
Cheekbone Beauty was created not simply as a cosmetics company, but as a brand where Indigenous people could see themselves represented in an industry where that visibility had long been absent.
For founders, Harper’s story serves as a reminder that sometimes the businesses we build become extensions of the deeper work we are doing within ourselves.
Purpose Creates Powerful Differentiation
Many startups talk about mission. Harper built an entire business model around it.
From product naming and packaging to internal company values, Cheekbone Beauty intentionally integrates Indigenous teachings into every part of the organization. The company draws heavily on the Seven Grandfather Teachings' values such as humility, honesty, respect, courage, and love, which guide its operations both internally and externally.
This level of intentionality has helped differentiate Cheekbone Beauty in an incredibly crowded beauty market.
Rather than simply participating in conversations around sustainability and clean beauty, Harper positioned the company through an Indigenous worldview that considers not only what is safe for consumers but also what is safe for the planet.
The lesson for entrepreneurs is clear: authentic purpose creates stronger long-term brand differentiation than trend-driven marketing ever could.
Great Ideas Are Not Enough
One of Harper’s most candid insights centred around a lesson many entrepreneurs learn the hard way.
Having a great product or idea is not enough.
Despite building a compelling brand and gaining national recognition, Harper openly discussed the operational challenges that Cheekbone Beauty faced as it scaled.
She explained that many early years were spent focusing heavily on product innovation and marketing, while operational systems and financial structures lagged.
As she put it, businesses ultimately succeed when three critical areas work together:
Marketing
Operations
Finance
Even the strongest brand cannot survive if those foundational systems are not functioning effectively.
For founders, this is an important reminder that entrepreneurship requires far more than creativity; execution matters just as much.
Innovation Requires Balance
Innovation has been central to Cheekbone Beauty’s growth, but Harper shared an important lesson about knowing when innovation can become financially unsustainable.
Early on, the company invested heavily in research and development, even building an internal R&D team to create new formulations and explore sustainable ingredient innovation.
One particularly exciting initiative called The Niagara Project focused on turning grape waste from Ontario’s wine industry into active skincare ingredients.
But innovation comes at a cost.
Harper explained that for smaller businesses, innovation spending must be balanced carefully against available capital and operational sustainability.
Sometimes, pursuing too much innovation too early can create unnecessary strain on a growing company.
The takeaway? Innovation is essential, but founders need to understand what their business can realistically support.
The Team Determines the Success of the Business
One of Harper’s biggest leadership lessons came through recognizing the importance of having the right people in the right roles.
As Cheekbone Beauty grew, she began noticing operational bottlenecks and financial challenges that leadership teams could not clearly explain.
That became a turning point.
Harper realized that trust alone is not enough; leadership teams must fully understand the functions they oversee and be able to clearly articulate what is happening inside the business.
She emphasized that company success ultimately comes down to people.
A strong team is not simply about good intentions. It requires humility, accountability, and a willingness to recognize when help or expertise is needed.
For entrepreneurs scaling their businesses, this often becomes one of the hardest but most important lessons to learn.
Your Identity Matters, But Your Product Matters More
As an Indigenous entrepreneur, Harper offered honest reflections on what it means to build a business as a founder from an underrepresented community.
While identity can absolutely shape perspective, culture, and the unique value a founder brings to the marketplace, she emphasized that identity alone will never guarantee business success.
At the end of the day, the business still needs a product or service people genuinely want.
Representation matters.
Authenticity matters.
But product-market fit matters too.
For diverse entrepreneurs building businesses today, Harper’s message was both empowering and realistic: bring your authentic self into what you build, but make sure what you are building solves a real problem.
Building for the Future
Today, Cheekbone Beauty continues expanding with new product launches, sustainability initiatives, and ongoing investments in Indigenous communities across North America.
More importantly, Harper continues proving that entrepreneurship can be about much more than profit.
It can be about reshaping industries, challenging systems, and building companies that reflect the values founders want to see in the world.
Her journey is a powerful reminder that entrepreneurship is rarely linear.
Sometimes success comes not from avoiding mistakes but from learning fast enough to build something stronger because of them.
And as Harper’s story shows, businesses built with both purpose and resilience often leave the greatest impact.
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