Sasha Plavsic was on opioids, trying to show up to meetings, her kidneys shutting down from years of relentless stress. The founder of ILIA Beauty had just sold the majority of her company after scaling it from $5 million to $100 million in under four years—a trajectory that should have left her basking in triumph. Instead, she was fighting for her life.

"It could have killed me," Plavsic tells me, reflecting on the 2021 health crisis that took two and a half years to recover from.

Today, ILIA Beauty stands as one of clean beauty’s greatest success stories, acquired for an undisclosed amount by the prestigious Courtin-Clarins family—their first major investment. But Plavsic’s journey from late-night side hustle to a nine-figure exit offers crucial lessons for the seventy-five percent of female founders who, according to new research from the Female Founders Alliance, experience burnout while building their companies.

In 2009, Plavsic had hit what she described as "rock bottom." Fresh off a breakup and battling severe acne that had plagued her since childhood, the 30-year-old moved back into a studio suite next to her parents' garage in Vancouver.

Her mother—already health-conscious from helping Plavsic's brother navigate severe allergies and asthma in the 1980s—urged her to examine her skincare products. What Plavsic discovered shocked her: many of the products meant to help her acne were actually making it worse.