From £20K to £2M in 14 Hours: SaaS Marketing Lessons from Beauty’s Biggest Breakouts

Beauty brand PLouise turned a £20K loan from her Nan into £2M worth of sales in just 14 hours on TikTok Live. It wasn’t just another “beauty brand goes viral” story, it was a masterclass in how creativity, community, and investment collide to create record-breaking growth.

The beauty powerhouse didn’t just hit £2M. She smashed her own record, cemented her spot as the #1 beauty brand on TikTok Shop across the UK & EU, and set a benchmark for what’s possible when marketing foundations are amplified by financial backing.

And while you might not be selling eyeshadow palettes or concealer pots, if you’re a B2B or SaaS brand, there are lessons here for you.

The Power of Financial Backing in Marketing

Let’s get real: marketing at scale costs money.

PLouise and other beauty brands like Made by Mitchell show that having a great idea is just the beginning. What propelled them to the next level was the ability to fuel every channel at once - PR placements, TikTok Lives, influencer collabs, paid ads, flyers, banners, and more.For SaaS brands, the toolkit looks different but the principle is the same:

• LinkedIn ad dominance

• Sponsored webinars with industry experts

• Paid search campaigns to capture demand

• Content partnerships with trusted B2B media
  

Financial stability doesn’t just fuel growth. It creates the space to test, fail, optimise, and scale faster.

Money = Growth

Community is the Catalyst

What sets these brands apart isn’t just their products. It’s the community.

Both PLouise and Made by Mitchell built more than brands - they built communities. Their audience didn’t just buy products; they championed them. The customers aren’t passive buyers for more lip glosses and blushes, they’re active advocates for the story and message. TikTok wasn’t just a sales channel; it was a stage for co-creation, storytelling, and belonging.

SaaS and B2B brands often get stuck in product-led messaging: “Here’s what we do, here’s how we do it.” But what if you flipped it? Replace “eyeshadow haul” with “platform demo.” Community still matters. It’s just framed differently:

That means:

• Micro-communities where users share challenges and wins

• Using live demos as interactive sessions (not sales pitches)

• Empowering users to share their own stories of transformation
  

Momentum Creates Credibility

The results speak for themselves:

• £143K sales per hour

• 31,000+ orders

• 35,000 products sold

• 4x increase in average order value year-on-year

These aren’t just numbers, they’re proof of motion.

For beauty, those numbers are staggering. For SaaS, swap “orders” with “customers onboarded,” “products sold” with “licenses activated,” and suddenly the power of velocity becomes clear.

In SaaS, momentum shows up as:

• New customer logos piling in

• Month-over-month retention growth

• Increased deal sizes as your credibility builds
  

'Products sold' charts

The bigger lesson: when the market sees traction, it skyrockets.

Credibility attracts investment. Investment fuels more growth. In PLouise’s case, the founder didn’t just borrow money from her Nan to throw at a few paid ads or free influencer drops. Her Nan believed in the vision, invested, and saw the dream come to life. That investment wasn’t poured into a single channel, it was distributed strategically across multiple touchpoints. By combining the power of TikTok’s booming beauty marketplace with that financial fuel, the brand was able to expand and scale at a pace that would have been otherwise impossible.

Scrappy Until You Scale

So many brands struggle financially in the early days, trying to meet demand without the capital to scale. Sound familiar?

If you’re in SaaS, the early days often mean bootstrapping: posting founder-led content, testing organic SEO plays, building community on sweat equity alone.

That scrappiness is valuable. It sharpens your USP and teaches you how to stand out in crowded markets.

👉 The key is knowing when to shift gears. Scrappy gets you noticed. Investment takes you further.

So, What’s the Takeaway for B2B & SaaS?

The playbook is simple, but execution is everything:

• Have a solid idea or product. It doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel, but it must solve a real problem.

• Lay marketing foundations early. Get your messaging, positioning, and core channels working before you scale.

• Leverage community. Even the most technical product can create connections when framed around people’s real struggles and wins.

• Seek financial backing when the time is right. Capital isn’t just for hiring devs; it’s for amplifying marketing.

• Stay adaptable. Scrappy when you need to be, structured when you can afford to be.

Final Thoughts

From humble beginnings to millions, PLouise and Made by Mitchell prove that when creativity meets investment, records are broken.

For SaaS and B2B brands, the playbook is the same - just swap eyeshadow palettes for platforms, and TikTok Lives for webinars. The question is: what’s your USP, and how will you use it to cut through the noise?

✨ Tune in to our blog next week, where we’ll break down why video marketing is an effective sales channel - it’s one of the most effective visibility tools to attract financial investment.

📩 Talk to the Media House experts — we'll help you identify and get in front of your target audience.