From the very beginning, Mondo ensured his brand mirrored his personality, just like his online presence. "My content was focussed on bringing professional knowledge to the average consumer and adding in humour," he says. "I don't think any brand incubators or investors really understood what I was doing, and so I wasn't approached by anybody to start a brand." To get the idea off the ground, he invested his own money into the company, which he calls a good thing, in hindsight.
"I sourced every person who works on the brand currently," Mondo says. "I built the business from the ground up, and it's been a really awesome journey, as well as a very crazy, complicated journey." The first product he launched was the Glitterati Styling Serum, which he says is "very much who I was at the time."
Mondo's come a long way from his father's salon in Massachusetts and feels as though he's had six different careers in his lifetime. Over the course of his journey, he has three defining moments that stand out from the rest. The first is moving to NYC to follow his dreams. "I really felt like, Wow, I'm literally in the city doing exactly what I want to do, exactly what I told people I would do, and not a lot of people believed I was going to do it." Also up there is when he hit a million subscribers on YouTube. "[That was] something I had on my vision board for so long," Mondo says. And lastly, launching his brand. "That was really another monumental thing in my life where I felt like, Wow, OK, I can do this. I can do anything. Let's keep going."
But he's nowhere near finished. Mondo's got plenty more dreams that he's manifesting, including a potential makeover show. "I would love to be known off of social media as well," he says. "I still think there is a sort of stigma [around] influencers, and I'm interested to see how I can break out of that mold and be known on my own."