BYBI's Founders Are Building Their New Brand Rayro Around the Realities of Family Life

When Dominika Minarovic and Elsie Rutterford decided to sell BYBI, one founder had just given birth, and the other was heavily pregnant. Something had to give.

The cult British beauty brand had been moving fast from the start, striking a deal to stock 2,000 Target stores at just three years old, then taking on debt financing and giving away equity to fuel further international expansion. “We were on this rocket ship, and it felt so stressful all the time,” says Minarovic. “We felt chaotic and panicked that someone was going to outpace us, so we were doing things before we were ready like our US launch, which was huge for a business of our size.”

The founders pushed on, taking a global pandemic and the births of their first, then second, children in their stride. But the business was growing too fast for either founder to step back from the day-to-day and, by 2024, they were burnt out.

“[We’d] built a business that wasn’t designed for working mothers, because we only became working mothers part way into that journey,” Rutterford says. “We had a team that was very reliant on us, and it was tough to burden the responsibility of the business with having two children each. Hustle culture and waking up at 5am — it’s not conducive to building a family. ”

BYBI sold to the founding team behind Revolution Beauty in 2024, and the founders set up an advisory business, DE London, to guide early-stage businesses on investment, distribution and brand strategy. The duo were also weighing up their own experiences as working mothers, and connecting with others going through the same thing, through their @twotiredmums_ Instagram and Tiktok accounts.

“If you’d asked us at the time, we’d have said there was no problem managing a family alongside [a business],” says Rutterford. “But now we’re speaking daily to women experiencing the same thing, and it’s clear that’s what happened to us. Perhaps because we put on a good front, we didn’t surround ourselves with people who were supportive of us as working mothers, which put on more pressure.”

Despite initially vowing never to start another consumer brand, within a year the idea had taken hold — along with a sense of how they could build a business differently. Rayro, a kids’ skincare line, launched in 2026 with three refillable sticks: a moisturiser, a magnesium balm, and a eucalyptus chest rub.

The approach to growth is the opposite of BYBI’s need for speed. Rather than chasing international markets, the founders want to nail their UK strategy first, and have so far built an affiliate network of 150 mothers, which drives around 50% of Rayro's sales. Overheads are kept down with freelance support and AI agents handling tasks like schedule planning, supplier briefing and research. They’re currently in the process of gathering customer feedback before committing to their next production run. And if anyone suggests a meeting during school run hours, they’ll say no.

“It’s been very calculated,” says Minarovic. “We want to build on our own terms and schedules, and there’s no point trying to shoehorn in a typical 9 to 5. We’re in an incredibly privileged position to dictate our own schedules, and parent out loud. We always make things work, but we’re also not shy to say we can’t do something because we have children.”

This shift in mindset is the latest evolution in Minarovic and Rutterford’s partnership, which has spanned more than a decade and four businesses together. “We’ve moved through life stages together,” says Minarovic. “Now we’re building for sustainability, for profit, and on our own terms. If we hit a million pounds in revenue this year, great. If we don’t, it doesn’t matter.”

Read more in The Difficult Second Brand? series:

• For Jolie Founder Ryan Babenzien, Showers are a Simpler Business Than Sneakers

• Herschel Co-Founder Lyndon Cormack Says Typical Towels Will Teach His Old Brand New Tricks