The ‘Gen Z Boss and a Mini’ Knew Exactly What She Was Doing

She’s the “Gen Z Boss and a Mini” heard round the internet, sparking endless discussions, misogynistic insults, and tons and tons of memes.

But for Rachael Wilde, the entire viral moment is exactly what she imagined when she launched her company, tbh Skincare, more than four years ago.

“Having fun and being playful is at the core of our ethos as a business,” Wilde tells me via email from her home in Sydney, Australia.

Wilde—who is, yes, Gen Z at age 27—co-founded the upstart acne care brand at just 23 and is now reckoning with a very modern challenge as a business owner: What happens when a silly video you make with your team on your social channels blows up and brings international attention to your brand?

Well, it’s a bit nuts, but Wilde and her team (which, she says, is 90 percent women) are rising to the challenge. First up, they launched a “Gen Z Boss and Mini” bundle on their website to capitalize on the “huge increase” in web traffic and are now figuring out how to engage further with their new fans, especially in the US. (For those in the States who want to get the bundle, a rep for the brand tells me that sadly, the brand is not available here yet.)

“The past few days have felt like a whirlwind, but I guess in moments of craziness some of the best ideas are born,” Wilde says.

Amid said whirlwind, Wilde took some time to re-introduce her team and brand, as well as answer our most pressing questions about her now-viral business.

Glamour: How and when did tbh Skincare get started?

Rachael Wilde: I founded tbh Skincare and launched the brand to market in March 2020, when I was 23 years old. I was lucky enough to come across the technology that’s now in our hero products—our acne hack spot treatment and anti-bacterial cleanser—when I was working in the medical devices industry prior to founding the business. Through working within this field, I came across a medical research and development company who had developed a technology that was being used in hospital and healthcare but also had the capacity to help control breakouts. Long story short, I actually ended up trialing the product out of the lab on my own skin. This is really where the very first seedlings of tbh Skincare were born.

The brand is especially playful, bright, and colorful for an acne company. Is that intentional?

Creating the brand and the community around tbh Skincare was so important to me personally. This category lacked innovation, fun, and human connection. The link between experiencing acne and the prevalence of mental health conditions such as depression is pretty well researched, and it’s something that I lived out first hand.

How has the brand grown since its founding?

In 2023, three years into the business, we merged with another Australian based brand, BOOST LAB, to create a new parent company: York St Brands. The merger means that tbh Skincare and BOOST LAB operate as their own brands but are now housed under the York St Brands umbrella, with one central team, shared revenue, greater efficiencies, and a focus on global expansion. We haven’t just seen significant revenue growth from the merger either. Over the last 12 months we’ve scaled all parts of the business pretty significantly, including the team which has gone from 8 to 27 people in the space of 9 months… We have a split of 90% females and 10% males in the office at York St Brands. Our CEO, COO, and Head of Innovation are all males, and the rest are women.