When Aaron Chatterley discovered he was having twins, his first thought was simple: “Great, I’ll definitely get a son”. Statistically speaking, the odds were on his side. Except they weren’t.
At the second scan, the doctor confirmed baby number one was a girl. Perfect, he thought – one of each. Then came the second announcement: also a girl. “I’m not going to lie,” he laughs now. “I deflated a little bit.”
Fast forward nearly 17 years, and the British beauty entrepreneur – who built and sold one of Europe’s biggest online beauty retailers – couldn’t be happier that fate delivered him two daughters instead. Frankie and India, as it turns out, would eventually spark his next business idea.
And it all started with a slightly alarming TikTok skin care tip.
The TikTok Tip That Sparked an Idea
By the time the conversation happened, Aaron was already deep inside the beauty industry. In 2005 he co-founded Feelunique, which grew into Europe’s largest independent online beauty retailer before being acquired by Sephora in 2021.
With the sale complete and a one-year transition period ahead of him, Aaron found himself asking a question many beauty executives were grappling with: how do you attract the next generation of customers?
Naturally, he went straight to the source – his daughters. “What brands do teenagers actually love?” he asked them one afternoon. “What are you using? And, what do you want from beauty?”
The answers were revealing. Teenagers were deeply engaged with skin care – arguably more than ever – but many were also using products designed for adults.
Then one comment stopped him in his tracks. “One of my daughters told me she’d seen on TikTok that if she started using retinol at 12, she wouldn’t get wrinkles later,” he says. “I was horrified.”
Retinol – a powerful anti-ageing ingredient – is widely considered unsuitable for young skin. Yet social media had convinced plenty of teens that the earlier they started anti-ageing routines, the better.
Aaron’s instinctive response was simple: teens should be using products designed specifically for them. His daughters’ response was even simpler. “There aren’t any.” At least not the kind they actually wanted to use.
“There were brands that skewed older, with ingredients they didn’t need,” he explains. “Or brands aimed at kids – very pink, unicorns and rainbows. But nothing that felt aspirational or cool in the way their fashion brands did.”
One of the twins casually suggested a solution. “Well, you’ve just sold your business,” she said. “Why don’t you start one?”
It was meant as a joke. But later that day, the entrepreneur in Aaron started to wonder if there was something bigger there.
From Kitchen Table Idea to Global Brand
Like many good startup stories, the early conversations happened around the family kitchen table. “What would we call it? Where would we sell it? What products would it have?” Aaron remembers asking.
At first it was simply a thought experiment – a way to show his daughters how businesses begin. But the idea wouldn’t leave him alone.
“In business you often have ideas that feel brilliant in the moment,” he says. “Then the more you think about them, the more problems appear and they fade away.” Occasionally, though, the opposite happens. The more you explore it, the bigger the opportunity becomes. And eventually you reach the point where you think – I have to do this.”
Before moving forward, he checked with Sephora, who had just acquired Feelunique and technically had a non-compete clause in place. Rather than objecting, the retailer saw potential. “They said there was definitely a white space there,” Aaron recalls.
Two years of development followed. The result is Indu beauty, a microbiome-friendly skin care brand designed specifically for teenagers – and one that just launched in Australia exclusively at Sephora.
Named After a Daughter (Eventually)
The brand’s name also has a family origin story – although it took some convincing.
When India was a toddler, she struggled to pronounce “Daddy” and instead called her father “Dadu.” The nickname stuck, and the family began calling her “Indu” in return.
So when it came time to name the brand, Aaron floated the idea. “She completely lost it,” he laughs. “She said if we called it that she’d leave home because she’d get bullied at school.”
Eventually, after months of development and seeing the brand take shape, she softened. “Finally she said, ‘Actually… I don’t mind if you call it Indu.’”
Why Brutally Honest Teenagers Had the Final Say
If there’s one rule Aaron followed while building the brand, it was authenticity. Teenagers themselves had to be involved.
A committee of around 30 teens helped shape everything from branding to product testing. Samples were sent out, feedback was collected through digital surveys and ideas were regularly polled. And yes, the feedback was brutally honest.
“The first moisturiser we tested, my daughter told me at dinner, ‘I wouldn’t buy it. It smells weird and it’s sticky,’” Aaron admits. “I was devastated. I thought we’d wasted all this time and money.”
But that honesty proved invaluable. The formula was tweaked and improved – and today the same daughter uses the finished product twice a day. “That moment reassured us the process was working,” he says. “They weren’t just telling us what we wanted to hear.”
The Problem With “Mini Adult” Skin Care
The philosophy behind Indu is intentionally simple.
Teenagers already have the healthiest skin they’ll ever have, Aaron explains. Their skin contains the highest levels of collagen and elastin it will ever produce. What they need isn’t anti-ageing – it’s protection.
“Teen skin is dealing with hormones, environmental stress and breakouts,” he says. “But it doesn’t need complicated 10-step routines.” Instead, Indu focuses on three core steps: cleanse, moisturise and protect.
The formulas avoid unnecessary actives while supporting the skin’s microbiome – the natural ecosystem that helps maintain healthy skin. The approach also addresses one of the biggest misconceptions Aaron sees in the skin care world.
“Great skin care isn’t a silver bullet,” he says. “You can use the best products in the world, but if you’re sleeping five hours a night, staring at your phone and not eating properly, you’re not going to have amazing skin.” It’s a lecture his wife frequently delivers at home – and one the brand now shares with its audience too.
Cool Enough for Teens, Sensible Enough for Parents
Interestingly, convincing teenagers to adopt skin care isn’t the challenge many parents assume. “They love the ritual,” Aaron says. “If anything, the challenge is convincing them they don’t need 10 products.”
Instead, Indu aims to sit comfortably in the middle of two audiences: teenagers who want brands that feel aspirational, and parents who want products that are safe and sensible. “It has to be something teens genuinely desire,” he says. “Because if they don’t think it’s cool, it doesn’t matter how good the ingredients are – they won’t use it.”
Judging by the early response, the formula seems to be working. And while Frankie and India have no plans to enter the beauty industry themselves – one wants to become a doctor, the other a writer – they remain involved behind the scenes.
Just not as influencers.
“They’re happy being part of the committee,” Aaron says. “But they definitely don’t want to be the face of the brand.” Which, for a teenage-inspired business built on authenticity, might be the most authentic decision of all.
