At Female Founder Collective’s The 10th House, we focus on helping founders understand what actually drives growth in today’s landscape—not just what used to work.
In our conversation with Crown Affair Founder & CEO Dianna Cohen, we unpacked a major shift happening across consumer brands: performance marketing alone is no longer enough. The brands breaking through today are the ones building emotional connection, cultural relevance, and long-term trust through brand, PR, and community.
Since launching in 2020, Crown Affair has become one of the fastest-growing prestige haircare brands—expanding into retailers like Sephora, Goop, and Violet Grey while maintaining a distinct point of view and deeply loyal customer base. What makes that growth especially notable is how intentional it’s been from day one.
Dianna didn’t build Crown Affair as a product-first company.
She built it as a brand-first ecosystem.
Dianna’s approach challenges a lot of conventional thinking—especially for early-stage founders trying to compete in crowded markets.
Brand is not your product—it’s your point of view.
One of the most important distinctions she made is the difference between product promises and brand pillars. Terms like “clean,” “sustainable,” or “organic” are important—but they are not what makes a brand memorable. Those are expectations. Real brand pillars are deeper, more emotional concepts that shape how your brand shows up everywhere. For Crown Affair, that core idea is “time”—a concept that informs everything from product development to messaging to customer experience.
The early days of a brand matter more than most founders realize.
Dianna emphasized that the first three years of building a brand are where the “magic” happens. This is when your brand’s essence is formed—before scale, before pressure, before dilution. Founders who are intentional during this phase are the ones who create brands that can actually last.
You don’t need a massive audience to start building community.
Before launching Crown Affair, Dianna didn’t rely on a large social following. Instead, she leveraged a decade of real relationships—email lists, in-person gatherings, and industry connections. The takeaway is simple: start with what you have. Community doesn’t begin with scale—it begins with connection and consistency.
PR works when there’s already momentum.
One of the most powerful insights from the conversation was how Crown Affair approached its launch. Instead of relying on traditional PR alone, Dianna focused on creating cultural buzz first—sending 300 highly intentional mailers to people within her network. When those people began posting organically, editors took notice. The result: major publications wanted to cover the brand because it was already being talked about.
The takeaway: PR doesn’t create demand—it amplifies it.
Founder presence builds trust—but it doesn’t have to look one specific way.
Dianna was candid about being a reluctant content creator. She doesn’t approach content like a typical Gen Z founder—but she still shows up. Whether through long-form writing, thoughtful storytelling, or occasional social posts, her focus is on connection over performance. The key isn’t volume—it’s consistency and authenticity.
Community is not one thing—it’s a system.
Perhaps the most important reframe from this session was how Dianna defines community. It’s not just followers or customers—it’s a collection of touchpoints:
Each of these plays a different role, but together they create something much more powerful than a transactional audience.
What Dianna’s approach reinforces is that modern growth is no longer about choosing between brand or performance—it’s about understanding how brand, PR, and community work together.
Performance marketing can drive short-term results.
But brand builds demand.
PR builds credibility.
And community builds longevity.
For early-stage founders, this means focusing less on chasing every channel and more on building a clear, intentional foundation.
For more established brands, it means refining what already exists—tightening your positioning, deepening relationships, and creating systems that compound over time.
Because the brands that win today aren’t just optimized for conversion.
They’re built to matter.
If you want access to more conversations like this—plus the frameworks, resources, and community to help you build a fundable brand—head inside The 10th House.
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