The Making of a Billionaire: How Kylie Jenner Bet Her Makeup Skills in an Unstoppable Empire on Kardashians

It's time to start reaching higher. Not only did the 20-year-old founder of Kylie Cosmetics make the cover of the economic magazine this week, but her image appeared next to a headline calling her "Queen of Cosmetics" and predicting that she would be a "beauty queen". she would be the youngest self-taught billionaire. Already. For reference, this is a title that was formerly owned by the founder of Microsoft Bill Gates and currently the CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg .

Detractors hastily quibbled over the use of the term "self-made". After all, thanks to the chance of genetics, she has been part of the family business since the age of nine, accumulating her indomitable fanbase (with 111 million followers on Instagram she regularly ranks in the top 10 on the social media platform) his stage-stealing antics on a little-known reality show called Keeping Up With the Kardashians . Even Dictionary.com could not resist making fun of his undeniable lead by tweeting "self-made means to have succeeded in life without help."

But it's hard to deny what's wrong. she has done is impressive.In the past two years and more since she officially launched her brand, Kylie Cosmetics, she has moved for more than $ 630 million worth of products.Using the most conservative estimates, Forbes estimated the value of the company at $ 800 million and Kylie owning it entirely, his net worth (including mentions for brands like Puma and his concerts) is around $ 900 billion dollars.

For those who did not see this coming, Unable to predict that the little girl who whirled around a striptease post during the first Keeping Up becoming a business titan, we invite you to take a look to his old interviews. Because she's been planning this day for years now.

"If I could do anything I wanted, I would have a successful make-up line," she thought of Interview in 2015, weeks before people understood really what is a kit for the lips.

Months later, as she settled into her new entrepreneurial role, she echoed a sentiment similar to that of AdWeek insisting that: My main goal is my range of cosmetics, there are so many things that I want to do that I can not really think about anything else, I want to take my time and work on each product until that point. he is perfect.

This was her niche.Some thing she came down to early enough in life, in comparison with, you know, the general population, but years after her older siblings found their own ways to turn the celebrity from reality into an awesome fortune.Kim had her mobile game, a selfie-based photo book; Khloe Kardashian a growing fitness empire Even his most reclusive brother Rob Kardashian had a line of socks

As a younger, Kylie and Kendall Jenner 22 years old, were marketed together, signed agreements with PacSun and Top Shop and launched their own clothing line, including Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdales, but as Kendall took off as a legitimate model me, Kylie realized that it was time for her to fly solo as well.

"Kendall and I were really together, and we wanted to do everything together, and we were And then Kendall started doing modeling, and that was her thing, and then I started doing my own thing, "she explained to Interview . "I really want to be a businesswoman."

So she looked at one of her best skills. Having spent years in the shadow of her older sisters, women with extensions adapted to Instagram and circumventing experts, she began to have concerns about her looks, especially about her lips, after a boy of school age regretted little. "

Spend hours scrutinizing YouTube tutorials and hired professionals to adorn his face for photos and red carpets, and scouring aisles of beauty so that the shades perfectly match her pout, she masters the art of drawing beyond the perimeter of her mouth.the lips appear larger.

It was not long before she Realizes that she should put her money where she was.In August 2015, as her increasingly large pucker gained notoriety, she cautiously presented the phrase "Kylie Lip Kits … for the pout perfect. "

As fans continued to scrutinize her lips, she struggled with her decision to lie about their less than natural state. "I did not want to have a bad influence," she explained to Complexe . "I did not want people to think that you had to do your lips to feel good about yourself, but they thought it was crazier than I lied because it was so obvious." But as tough as the controversy was, he pointed to an unmet demand in the cosmetics industry. If teenagers obsessed with social media were willing to take part in the #KylieJennerChallenge (a rather carefree fashion that consisted of placing a drink on their mouths and sucking them), it was clear that they would do pretty much n & # 39; No matter what to imitate the star of reality. pout.

Even after admitting to having temporary lips in May 2015, accommodating to go a bit too far, his dedicated followers – exceeding 50 million thanks to his learned social media skills – were interested in natural remedies that she could offer.

Ponying up to $ 250,000 of his modeling money as the starting money ("I said," I'm ready to put some money, I do not want to do it with someone else, "she said Forbes ), she asked a company to produce 15,000 lipsticks in just three shades and s & rsquo; Is set to tease the launch of November 30, 2015 on its platforms.

"I ordered a very small sum and I was almost certain that she was not going to sell herself", she will explain later on her reality Life of Kylie .

This was a rare case of misjudgment. Kylie Lip Kits lasted 60 seconds, because, as she recalled to Forbes "even before I refreshed the page, everything was complete."

For almost three years, the company has grown, with shadows, blushes, highlighters, brushes and joint ventures with all the sisters except Kendall (though ######################################################################################## 39, they still have their contemporary clothing line Kendall + Kylie), as well as the manager Kris.

Of course, the matriarch of the family was the original collaborator, overseeing the business side of the business in exchange for cutting 10 percent of the manager she collects from all her descendants. After witnessing the success of the first sale of lip kits, she was the first to use the Shopify e-commerce platform to serve as a base for Kylie Cosmetics renamed in February 2016 with 500,000 kits in six shades.

"I did not know where to start, which factory, which to go with, I did not know anything," Kylie explained in her profile Violet Gray . "My mom really helped me with that, she drove all the factories in Los Angeles in search of perfection."

She landed on Seed Beauty, a private label producer in Oxnard, California. the packaging and manufacture of the brand. Shopify occupies sales and execution. The rest of the multi-million dollar business, however, is run by only 12 staff members, of which only seven are full-time.

With Limited Wages to Distribute Kylie saves considerably by abandoning a traditional brick-and-mortar store in favor of using the millennial-friendly online model. (Except for the small ephemeral shops in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, the first of which had 25,000 customers in two weeks.) As she explained to WWD the year last, "E-comm is the future Creating experiences and coveted items online helps create and inspire enthusiasm and give customers a reason to shop constantly."

The bone-free operation takes place mainly from the dining table of the hidden hills of Kris spread or from a Kylie home bought in 2016, just steps away – means the clever star more than its millions of pockets.

And why not? Not only is she the brains behind the operation, she is by far the most valuable marketing resource. With more than 100 million Instagram followers, she only has to post a selfie praising her shadow of the day and her younger followers are clamoring to add it to their carts. Although she insists that her goal is not to run at each new collection, she said: Glamor UK Last year, the challenge was to meet On demand: "I want girls to be it's as simple as possible, but no matter how much we make, it sells even faster each time. "

Notes Loren Padelford, whose Shopify Plus oversees the online shops for Drake ] Justin Bieber and Kim Kylie's," No other influencer has ever had the volume or had the enraged fans and consistency that Kylie has had over the past two and a half years. "

With her current growth rate, she's on track to compete with giants of the cosmetic industry like Bobbi Brown (who took 25 years to earn $ 1 billion) and Lancôme from L'Oréal (they reached that benchmark in 2015 after 80 years.)

And she's not even not close to doing.An insider told E! News wants to "develop more cosmetic projects within the Kylie Cosmetics brand, she is definitely trying to expand her range." Ideally around the world, she declared ES Magazine adding, "I would like to be in stores everywhere."

Sound ultimate goal, she said Forbes is to pass it on a day to 5 months Stormi her daughter with boyfriend musician Travis Scott "if she is there." Either way, he will stay in the family as Kylie says she hopes to work on her business "forever."

And, at this point, if someone chooses to doubt her, they do so at their own peril.

"I really feel that people do not take me seriously as a businesswoman because of my age. reputation, "she said on an episode of Life of Kylie . "But I have the impression that they are starting to do it, I like to prove that people are wrong."