How Kylie Jenner has become the youngest billionaire in history
We all know the Kardashian clan, a group of American women of Armenian descent who at the time became famous thanks to Kim's media presence and because of her friendship with Paris Hilton. Today all the Kardashian sisters (and their mother) are famous thanks to their reality show "Keeping up with the Kardashians." But why are we touching on this topic on Tentulogo? Read a little below to find out.
In July 2018, Forbes magazine, one of the most respected and read in the business world, published on its cover the youngest of the Kardashian sisters, Kylie, just 21 years old; and in March 2019 the magazine named her the youngest “self-made” billionaire in the world and in history, surpassing the record that Mark Zuckerberg achieved at 23 years old.
At Tentulogo we like enterprising and successful girls; We have written about executives of technology or food companies, we have also talked about fashion designers, but we never would have imagined that we would talk about one of the Kardashians, much less the least of them. When we read the story that revolves around her success, we realized that it was not what we thought and that we could actually learn a lot from her.
Let's see, the first thing we must say is that all the Kardashians, in one way or another, have a not inconsiderable business interest, because although at first glance they do not seem to be the best example to follow in terms of entrepreneurship and seriousness, There is a certain fact and it is that they have all worked separately to multiply the fortune of 100 million dollars that their father, Robert Kardashian, left them when he died in 2003.
This has been the case thanks to the impulse and diffusion that the reality show in which practically the whole family has participated since 2007 has given them, and this has also made all the Kardashian ventures related to the show, the media or fashion.
But the case of Kylie Jenner has left everyone with their mouths open, because Forbes announced that her makeup company is currently worth almost 1,000 million dollars, and that she has 100% of the shares (trust) that is not only It makes her the wealthiest member of the Kardashian clan (she surpassed her older sisters by far, next is Kim with $ 300 million), but it also makes her the youngest "self-made" billionaire in the world.
Let's look at this story in more detail
Kylie is not the daughter of Robert Kardashian, but of Bruce Jenner, the second husband of Kris Houghton (Robert's widow), who also gave much to talk about in 2015 when he announced the culmination of his sexual reassignment process, changing his name Caitlyn Jenner. From the age of 10, Kylie could be seen on her family's reality show, which made her grow in that world of fame and fortune in which, in fact, the Kardashian family lived then.
Her fame, involuntary in many aspects, always kept her in the eye of the hurricane and in the sights of the paparazzi. In that sense, 2014 was a crucial year for her and it was all due to a cosmetic surgery that was done: she considerably increased the size of her lips and that caused a lot of controversy. How could a 17-year-old girl be allowed to do such a thing? Not satisfied with that, people made fun of the result of her aesthetic treatment with the famous "Kylie Jenner Challenge", which consisted of sucking a glass until her lips swelled with blood and taking a picture pouting.
So the one who seemed the calmest of the clan, was fulfilling the Kardashian tradition of making a scandal that everyone was talking about. This instantly put her on everyone's lips and made her stop being the modestly famous teenager, Kim Kardashian's sister, to become the super famous and wild Kylie Jenner. Relationships with rappers, an early pregnancy ... Anyway, Kylie seemed to repeat the family stereotypes and it was not surprising.
Kylie Jenner wanted to go further
But deep down, behind the scenes, Kylie was processing ideas, also because her mother, Kris, has put pressure on all her children to start making money. Already her closest sister in age, Kendall, was doing it with runway modeling, so she was seeing what she could do on her own.
As you would expect from a girl who grew up on camera, Kylie has always been precocious in many ways, especially her looks. "Since I was in sixth grade, I had been wearing purple eyeshadow," she told Forbes. "I veered into makeup to help me feel more confident." She learned about makeup by watching YouTube videos and examining the professionals who painted her face for television appearances and photo shoots, gaining vital insights that would be critical to them in the future. And it is that knowledge is perhaps the most important element that an entrepreneur can develop.
Kylie Cosmetics
She used $ 250,000 of her modeling earnings to pay an outside company to produce her first 15,000 makeup kits. That is how, on November 30, 2016, she launched her cosmetics brand, Kylie Cosmetics, when she was just 18 years old. Lip kits cost $ 29 and consist of a lipstick and lip liner set. The brand was an immediate boom, it sold everything in less than a minute, because Kylie herself was the image and her bizarre lips are a reference among girls and adolescents.
It has been perhaps one of the most important examples of personal branding that we have ever had, and a Kardashian did it. But this is where Mom's wise advice comes in again. As with all Kardashian-Jenner companies, Kris is the driver of the big moves. She felt this could be a sustainable business and not just an isolated event, and made contact with the Shopify platform, run by Canadian billionaire Tobi Lutke, in December 2016.
Since then, that lip kit alone has sold more than $ 600 million, and so today the entire brand (which has even more products) is worth around $ 1 billion. To Kylie's personal fortune we have to add the millions she has earned from the royalties from her family's reality show, from her own reality show (premiered in 2017) and from the contracts she has as the image of different clothing brands.
The secret of success
Basically all that Kylie has done to earn all that money has been to make the most of her social media. Almost every hour, she turns to Instagram and Snapchat, combining bunny pouts and filters with Kylie Cosmetic ads; In addition, she takes videos of upcoming products and announces new releases through all her accounts.
It sounds absurd until you realize that it has more than 110 million followers on Instagram and even more on Snapchat, and many of those followers are young women and girls, an audience both massive and specific, which is very convenient if you are selling lipsticks. . That's not counting the 16.4 million who follow the company on Instagram, the 25.6 million who follow it on Twitter, and the other so many million followers on the accounts of their family and friends who, of course, often do the favor to advertise your brand. And back to the topic of successful examples, it is perhaps the most successful example of social marketing that we have ever seen; it is a thing that has no name ...
In fact, if we were to compare it with another phenomenon, it would not be very different from what happened in the first days of Donald Trump's presidential campaign (year 2016), when the strategy of this presidential candidate basically consisted of provocative tweeting and holding rallies occasionally. The products of "reality television", precisely like Trump and Jenner, understood that in addition to people they are also brands and that "fame" is just another way of saying "free advertising."
Social media has turned an egocentric businessman into president of the United States and a superfluous 21-year-old girl into the youngest “self-made” billionaire in the world and in history. This is a message that providence is sending us entrepreneurs !; So let's start looking at the things that really matter now, this is how we can understand where the good deals are.
critics
"Self-made"?
Critics of the Kardashians usually attack them by telling them that they are useless and that they all depend on their mother, Kris, who in the artistic world serves as the "manager" and public relations of all of them, and who also serves as the head of the administrative part of all the companies of his daughters. In this way, they criticize Kylie for really being a fake figure in their company, simply the image of a company that is run by her mother.
The virtue of "self-made" lies in the power of creativity, cunning and constant work and how these elements take you from one point to another that is superior; When they tell you that you are a "self-made" millionaire it does not mean that you have not received help (as that is very subjective; Mark Zuckerberg, at the time, had help from millionaire investors and management experts to lift Facebook from its first stages), but you have worked to have the money you have, you have not inherited it or you have won the lottery.
In fact, as Kylie is not nominally a Kardashian, she is not an heiress (both her parents are still alive), so she was supported in principle, and what she used for her company was money that she was paid for a fashion job. But even if she had used an inheritance similar to that of her older sisters, she would now be worth so much more thanks to work to consider her, in effect, a "self-made" billionaire.
Low sustainability?
The success of the Kylie Cosmetics brand is due today exclusively to the Kylie Jenner centimeter. This has caused many experts to warn about the possible unsustainability of the business in the long term, unless it is possible to develop a marketing strategy that allows the company to maintain itself or grow and that has not been anything more than a moment of euphoria very well monetized.
Stars are famous for certain periods of time, they are not perennially famous. So when Kylie starts to stop being so media, it will probably affect her brand in part. In fact, the growth of Kylie Cosmetics has already shown signs of weakness in that regard, however, it will be necessary to see how everything turns out over time.
What can we learn from the Kylie Jenner case?
1. Social media is important
This may sound cliché, but there are people who trust their safe environments and this leads them to think that their businesses are fine without social networks. While it is true that certain businesses have "safe environments", social networks allow you to maximize your possibilities. It is not that we pretend to be Kylie Jenner, because few have the real possibility of having an Instagram account with more than 100 million followers, but they do not imagine the magnitude that just an account with 20k earned can have for a business.
2. Delegate what we don't know to those who know
By delegating the parts of our business in which we are so good or in which we have no experience, it prevents us from having to invest time and money in the development of that area, which would also imply trials and errors that in the long run do not give a good result. Issues such as outsourcing or "outsourcing" is something that we must take into account when developing an idea.
In the case of Kylie's company, most of the industrial areas involved in the production and distribution of its products depend on other specialist companies. Basically, the small corporate structure of Kilye Cosmetics only deals with administrative matters, design and marketing. This is not a weakness at all, in fact, large US technology companies such as Apple and Microsoft have outsourced their industrial operations to Chinese and Taiwanese companies, as it is cheaper than building their manufacturing plants themselves.
It's true, most likely Kylie Jenner doesn't have the slightest idea of how lipstick is made, what chemicals are used, how safe they are, etc., but she is associated with the people who do.
3. Take care of public relations
Lately, entrepreneurs have only been looking at how to innovate and how to raise capital from venture investors. It is as if they had been formed into a sectarian group that has an impervious methodology for doing things, and many times, this methodology neglects important elements of a business such as publicity and public relations.
A good relationship with the media and with the small influencers who make life in the environment in which you operate is essential for your business, because they are the ones who will end up showing the work you do to others. And in that sense, Kris' work as a public relations officer for her daughter's brand has been fantastic, to the point where she made her the cover of Forbes for the month of August 2018.
Working to achieve this kind of influence is not only done in the startup ghetto, but also by talking to people, with the media and looking for a level of projection beyond that corresponding to our immediate circle.
Sometimes we tend to disparage celebrities for how superfluous they seem to us, but they are precisely those who have the secret of success: the centimeter, the fame ... How many people have not bought an iPhone just out of admiration for Steve Jobs or how many people have not Will he have invested in Elon Musk's business just because of the man's fame? Being known is something important and that can be used, of course. Did Kylie Jenner take advantage of her fame? Of course it is, almost more than anyone else on planet Earth, and that is worthy of admiration.
