How a former Vogue fashion assistant built Glossier from a small blog to a $1.2 billion beauty business
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Mar 23, 2019, 20:12 IST
Weiss moved to New York at 18 to study at New York University, majoring in studio art. It was at this point that she made her first foray into the fashion and beauty realm by taking up a three-day-a-week internship at Teen Vogue during her studies.
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After graduating in 2007, Weiss worked briefly for W magazine before moving to Vogue, where she worked as a fashion assistant.
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While working as a fashion assistant, Weiss set up her beauty blog, Into The Gloss, spotting a gap in the market for beauty product coverage.
Weiss would candidly interview celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Karlie Kloss about their beauty regimens.
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The blog quickly gained a following among beauty enthusiasts who commented on posts to share their experiences with various products and make suggestions to other readers.
Weiss decided to leave her job to focus on the blog full-time. She asked Nick Axelrod, a friend who had also worked in publishing, to become the editorial director.
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Weiss re-launched the website and upped the number of posts; overnight traffic to the site tripled.
Product feedback on the blog laid the foundation for what was to come. Weiss was now armed with a wealth of information to create products that were directly tied to what readers wanted.
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A year later, Glossier was born.
Weiss teased the new brand on Instagram about four weeks before launch. Within the first week of selling the new products, she had more than 18,000 followers.
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Instagram influencers and celebrities spread the message, posting photos of themselves in Glossier swag. Glossier launched with four products: a facial mist, moisturizer, skin tint, and balm. These products were intended to give off a "no-makeup" look.
A key part of Glossier's success has been Weiss' commitment to its brand identity.
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But the most defining part of its business model is its customer feedback system.
Between 2016 and 2018, the company raised $76 million in two rounds of funding and opened two stores: a showroom in New York (which transitioned into a permanent flagship store) and a store in Los Angeles.
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The company told Business Insider that it surpassed $100 million in annual revenue in 2018, doubling its 2017 numbers. It also acquired a million new customers that year.
In March 2019, Glossier launched a new color makeup brand, Glossier Play, which was two years in the making.
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Two weeks later, the company was valued at $1.2 billion after receiving $100 million in funding.
It plans to open five pop-up locations in 2019, beginning with Miami in the spring.