Aimee Connolly has revealed what she thinks sets successful entrepreneurs apart as her beauty brand, Sculpted by Aimee, looks set to grow sales by €20m this year.

Sculpted by Aimee products are on course to be stocked in 700 stores in 2025, and the company is expected to bring in revenue of €46.5m, up from €26.5m last year, according to BeautyMatter.

Connolly, who is an ambassador for the 2025 Vhi Women’s Mini Marathon, taking place on 1 June, founded the company in 2016 with €10,000 in savings from her work as a freelance make-up artist.

Speaking to EVOKE ahead of the event, Connolly said she has never quite escaped that gut-wrenching feeling that all small business owners get when making risky decisions.

"It's all kind of relative to the journey, but I think that fear that it could all go is so normal," she said, adding there is one major difference between entrepreneurs who find success and those that don't.

"That fear of failure is in all of us, I think the the main difference with entrepreneurs is that we just put it past us and say, 'I get that it's there, I get that it's a risk, but I'm gonna keep going anyway, because it has to work or this will work, or I believe this will work.'"

She confessed that she still feels like a small business owner sometimes, despite her products being stocked in Boots, Brown Thomas, Arnotts, Selfridges, John Lewis, and ASOS, and she is reluctant to congratulate herself on the firm's success.

"It's probably the Irish in me, I'd never be like, 'God, aren't we great, I can put my feet up. We've just done it,'" she said.

"I think if I was to say to myself eight years ago that we would do all this, I'd be like, "no way", but also when you're in it and your head is in the detail, you don't lift it up to acknowledge it because you're just like onto the next thing.

"I can be guilty of that as well. Ultimately, I'm really proud, but there is still loads to do, which is very exciting,' she said. 'I've definitely gotten better at celebrating the wins, in particular for the team's sake, because so much hard work goes into things."

The latest available accounts for Sculpted by Aimee show the company has profit reserves of €9.1m after making a €2.5m profit in 2023.

The firm, which employs around 90 people, now stocks more than 160 make-up and beauty products online and at its stores in Dublin, Kildare Village, Belfast and London.

Photo: Aimee Connolly. (Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile)