Bobbi Brown and other founders share their advice for starting your own company

Kirill Bigai, CEO of Preply; Bobbi Brown, founder of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics and Jones Road Beauty; and Ben Goodwin, founder of Olipop.

Preply/ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Olipop Americans filed over 3 million business applications in the first six months of the year.

AI tools are making it easier for some entrepreneurs to build brands of their own.

Business Insider spoke with five founders, including makeup mogul Bobbi Brown, about starting a business.

Now might be the perfect time to launch that business you've been dreaming about.

Americans filed more than 3 million applications to start businesses in the first six months of 2026, up 16.5% from a year earlier, according to US Census Bureau data.

The uptick comes as AI lowers the barriers to entrepreneurship, and shifting job requirements and recurring layoffs make some traditional careers feel less secure.

Deepali Vyas , CEO and founder of Vyas Media, told Business Insider that more opportunities are opening up for people to build businesses.

"Twenty years ago, you probably needed employees and designers and marketers," Vyas said.

"Today, AI can do much of that first draft work." Business Insider spoke to the founders of Jones Road Beauty, PopSockets, Olipop, OpenFarm, and Preply about how they built their companies and grew their brands.

This is the advice they had for entrepreneurs : Bobbi Brown, founder of Jones Road Beauty Bobbi Brown founded Jones Road Beauty in 2020.

Roy Rochlin/FilmMagic After leaving her namesake beauty brand in 2016, Bobbi Brown spent several years experimenting with new ventures, from a supplement company to a Lord & Taylor concept store.

Those experiences eventually led her to launch her second act: Jones Road Beauty , a clean makeup brand built on the same philosophy that made her first company successful: that makeup should be simple and natural.

"I don't want to be like other makeup brands.