Beautiful Fortune: Kylie Jenner & The Billion-Dollar Kylie Cosmetics Empire

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The journey of how Kylie Jenner grew her cosmetics company to become a billionaire at 21 is truly stunning. Kylie is one of the youngest of the Kardashian-Jenner family who became famous because of the reality TV show Keeping Up With the Kardashians in 2007. Like most other women in the celebrity household, Kylie too followed in the steps of the queen bee Kim Kardashian to establish her own company, which later made her the youngest billionaire in the world.

After becoming a well-known media personality, Kylie founded her company and named it Kylie Cosmetics, LLC. She started with lip cosmetics like liquid lip colors and lip liners, and the company started getting recognized as Kylie Lip Kits in 2015. But soon after this venture took off, Kylie decided to go for more diversification, and thus the name Kylie Cosmetics came into being. From 2018 to the end of 2019, Kylie Cosmetics went from being a million-dollar enterprise to a billion-dollar one as per the Jenners' evaluations.

Here’s a glimpse at how Kylie grew her empire with the help of ‘Kylie Cosmetics’ to become the youngest self-made billionaire.

The Birth Of Kylie Cosmetics

Kylie launched Kylie Lip Kits in 2015 with revenue from her endorsement deals through the TV show Keeping Up with the Kardashians and her dazzling modeling career. She invested about $250,000 to produce her first batch of lipsticks and lip liners. The kits were worth about $29, and they sold out instantly, thanks to her influence.

Soon after, Kylie felt confident enough to go for a diversification project for her company which also meant renaming her brand. Thus, Kylie Cosmetics came into existence, and the company started making $400 million in revenue, from which the model took home $250 million as personal earrings.

Kylie Cosmetics Taking Off

When Kylie Cosmetics finally took off, the returns increased drastically while Kylie's income had already increased by at least $100 million. Once the company was famous amongst consumers, Kylie saw it as the perfect opportunity to launch newer, more exciting products like the Kyshadow palette, a nine-pan eyeshadow palette with bronze and neutral colors.

In 2016, Kylie collaborated with her sister Khloe Kardashian to create the Koko x Kylie collection, which comprised a four-piece lipstick set. The sisters successfully clubbed both their fan bases to make their joint venture fly. They took it as a sign when the kits vanished right after their launch and went on to do two more such collaborations, as stated by WWD.

2017 was another crucial year for the growth of Kylie Cosmetics as the first product in the face category was launched, and Kylie called it Kylighter - a kit comprising six highlighter shades. The KKW creme lipstick was the next Kylie Cosmetics collaboration with Kim Kardashian, which reportedly generated a jaw-dropping $13.4 million in sales.

Obstacles Faced

Undeniably, Kylie made excellent profits out of Kylie Cosmetics, and her consecutive achievements were unprecedented, especially for her age. However, her business journey was not without obstacles.

After making it to the list of the richest self-made American businesswomen, Kylie Faced some backlash and incredulity regarding her business being ‘self-made’. Many people were of the view that her family had enough wealth to help her with the launch of her glamorous business. Kylie, however, emerged strong and proved to the world that she had enough influence and business skills to achieve the impossible by herself.

Kylie’s Brilliant Business Strategy

Kylie Jenner might be one of the youngest members of the Kardashian-Jenner family, but she is, in fact, one of the smartest when it comes to making business decisions. Despite being relatively new, Kylie Cosmetics is one of the most successful ventures as compared to the business ventures of the other Jenners and Kardashians. For example, Good American by Khloe Kardashian or Jenner Communications by Kris Jenner is still growing as multi-million-dollar businesses. However, Kylie incorporated another clever business tactic by collaborating with her family members - a strategy that ExoWorks refers to as leveraging the community.

Kylie's very important and relevant business strategy is promoting goods on social media platforms like Instagram. The young model has perhaps learned from the best because Kim Kardashian marketed her products amongst a targeted demographic that constituted mostly women her age who wanted to look pretty and glamorous. Similarly, Kylie targeted the younger generation of women, and nothing could work better than social media.

Folks from Gen Z are especially active on social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram. Kylie was well aware of the fact that she was the ultimate Instagram Influencer and liked to help her sisters out by being their model sometimes. Another factor that makes Kylie Cosmetics so popular amongst fans was its user-friendly interface and feminine vibe, which Kylie deliberately designed to increase sales.

Getting Investors For Her Company

Kylie has also made a few crucial business decisions that turned her into the youngest billionaire in the world. For instance, at the beginning of 2021, she decided to sell about 51 percent of Kylie Cosmetics to a company called Coty, another beauty giant. The deal was sealed at an astounding $1.2 billion.

This cleared all doubts about whether Kylie was a billionaire at such a tender age. Forbes officially declared this historical transaction as one of the most profitable ones even by the standards of the Kardashians and Jenners. The chairman of Coty, Peter Harf, was also in complete awe of what Kylie had achieved as a modern-day fashion icon and that too, at an early age in her life.

After considerable success in makeup and cosmetics, Kylie's new aim has been skincare products, including face washes, toners, moisturizers, scrubs, and eye creams. Kylie Cosmetics has also diversified to launch body care products and fresh fragrances.

Source: Econsultancy, ExoWorks, WWD, Forbes