How this influencer started a $100+ million fragrance empire after divorce (ft. Chriselle Lim)

What if heartbreak was the beginning of your empire? In this episode of The Burnouts, entrepreneur and creative director Chriselle Lim sits down with Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni to unpack how she went from TikTok’s “rich mom” to co-owning Phlur, a $100M+ fragrance brand. From the ashes of burnout and divorce, Chriselle rebuilt her life—and helped reshape how fragrance is built, branded, and sold. She shares the story behind Missing Person (the perfume with a 250K waitlist that changed everything) and how reinvention became her real superpower. Also: the bamboo tree metaphor that will stick with you forever.

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As former Stanford roommates and now business partners, Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni share their experience as startup founders and the complexities of being young professionals—from financial literacy, social impact, and navigating networking (ever been hit on through LinkedIn?). With exclusive access to top experts, they offer an inside look at their chaotic lives alongside career insights from their network of thought leaders. Watch The Burnouts pursue their dreams while trying to keep their lives from going up in flames. Will they burn out? We’ll find out.