Grocery Store Botox? The $17B Med Spa Boom Meets the Private Equity Playbook

2026-02-27

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You can now get a discount on your Botox or Brow lift at… Erewhon? The latest partnership between Erewhon and med spa startup Ject isn’t just a publicity stunt. It’s a bigger signal: medical aesthetics has gone fully mainstream. In this episode, Sammi unpacks how Botox went from cosmetic approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration just 14 years ago to a $17B industry with more than 10,000 med spas across the U.S. She breaks down the forces behind the boom like loosened regulations, cash-pay margins, social media normali...

In this episode, Sammi unpacks how Botox went from cosmetic approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration just 14 years ago to a $17B industry with more than 10,000 med spas across the U.S. She breaks down the forces behind the boom like loosened regulations, cash-pay margins, social media normalization, and why private equity is racing to roll up the space. But when the product is commoditized, what’s the real moat?

Sammi’s takeaway: the brand is not the competitive advantage, it’s something else hiding in plain sight.

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Here’s what Sammi covers today:

00:00 Grocery Store Botox

01:15 How Med Spas Took Off

02:04 Insane Growth By The Numbers

02:55 Regulatory Changes

03:36 Social Media’s Impact on the Landscape

04:28 Private Equity Moves In

05:43 The Rollup Playbook

06:48 HIV Outbreaks, Safety And Oversight Risks