After disrupting gifting with Lvly, Hannah Spilva takes aim at hair colour

Few founders disrupt one category, let alone two. After reimagining flowers and gifting with Lvly (pronounced “lovely”), Hannah Spilva is taking on another industry that hasn’t moved in decades, at-home hair colour. With Done Hair, Spilva is betting that convenience, brand and digital retail can turn a functional purchase into a beauty ritual. Here, she discusses why she made the shift from blooms to greys, the lessons she carried across both businesses and why hair could be retail’s next reinvention story.Inside Retail: What inspired you to move from flowers and gifting into the hair category, and how does Done Hair build on the brand-building lessons you learned at Lvly?Hannah Spilva: I’m drawn to categories that feel stuck. Flowers were one – beautiful, emotional, but the industry hadn’t moved in decades. Hair colour is the same. It’s one of beauty’s highest frequency rituals, yet the category hasn’t caught up with how modern consumers want to shop or experience products.At Lvly, we proved you can take something commoditised and make it feel fresh and memorable by obsessing over brand, experience and convenience. With Done, we’re applying that same playbook: rethinking a tired category, stripping out the friction and building a brand people genuinely love engaging with. The difference is, this time it’s even more personal – because when your greys keep coming back every 2-8 weeks, the problem (and the opportunity) is relentless.IR: Lvly was known for creating memorable experiences in what could be a commoditised category. How are you thinking about differentiation and customer experience in haircare and what does that look like in a digital-first retail landscape?HS: Differentiation can be about lots of things. In the first instance, for Don,e it’s about product, experience and brand, but long term, we want to build out differentiation via distribution too. On the product side, we’re delivering salon-quality results without the salon – 100 per cent grey coverage in 10 ten minutes, with formulations that are vegan, cruelty-free and free from nasties. The experience is designed to feel effortless rather than overwhelming, with a simple prep-colour-care ritual and packaging that’s built as an unboxing moment, not a chore. And the brand itself has a playful, rebellious voice that doesn’t take itself too seriously but still delivers serious results.Looking ahead, distribution will be the real unlock. At Lvly, direct-to-consumer was everything. With Done, DTC will remain our foundation, but the bigger opportunities lie in smart retail partnerships, community-driven experiences and new digital-first channels that meet customers where they already are.IR: How do you see the environment for retail founders today compared to when you started Lvly?HS: I wouldn’t say it’s changed dramatically from a funding perspective. Women-led businesses still get less than their fair share of capital and lots of deals remain founder-unfriendly. There were actually more government grants available to us 10 years ago than there are now, which is disappointing. At the same time, there has been some progress. There are more angel networks, accelerators and alternative funding models like revenue-based finance, which simply didn’t exist 10 years ago. So the access points are broader, but deals are generally smaller and systemic gaps remain. From a consumer perspective, 10 years ago, people were impressed if your product was good and your delivery worked. Today, a great product is just the ticket to entry; the real loyalty comes from everything around it – speed of delivery, transparency, values, experience and community. And the retail landscape is more cluttered than ever, so competition for customers is fierce. It’s tough out there for sure, but there are success stories. IR: Which elements of retail strategy will be most critical to scaling Done Hair, and how do you plan to balance speed of growth with sustainability?HS: Early levers will be brand building, creating a strong community and driving customer retention. This is such a high-frequency category that if we get customers coming back again and again, growth compounds naturally. Building a rebellious, relatable brand voice and a strong community will fuel organic growth, while packaging and experience are designed to transform a functional purchase into a memorable moment of advocacy.Medium to long term, the levers will undoubtedly be distributed. Local and global retail partnerships will be key to taking Done from a digital-first disruptor to a mainstream brand. Alongside that, new product development will be critical – we’re not just building a single SKU, we’re creating an entire system around hair colour and covering grey hair, which is ripe for innovation. None of this can scale without capital, so founder-friendly funding will underpin our ability to invest in growth without compromising sustainability.Balancing speed with sustainability is always front of mind. At Lvly, we learned that hypergrowth without strong infrastructure creates big cracks. With Done, our goal is to lay solid foundations in operations, tech and unit economics before chasing vanity metrics.IR: What’s your vision for Done Hair in the next five years (both in terms of market position and in shaping consumer behaviour in haircare)?HS: I want Done to be the brand that redefined how people deal with grey hair. Globally, the anti-aging category is worth upwards of US$70 billion, yet there isn’t a single brand dedicated to solving the relentless cycle of grey regrowth. It’s not a niche market – almost everyone goes grey – yet the consumer options remain outdated and limited. That’s the gap Done was built to fill.My vision is for Done to become synonymous with convenience, confidence, and conscious formulations. But it’s not just about market share – it’s about shifting behaviour. Right now, at-home hair colour is seen as a compromise: cheap, messy, second-best to the salon. Done flips that narrative. It should feel like a smart, premium choice – time-saving and empowering.