How Kim Kardashian West built her $780 million empire

Kardashian said Robert Sr. told her she could buy five pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes as long as she paid him back plus interest.

The shoes were $700 heels in a style worn by Jennifer Lopez in one of her early music videos. "Everyone had to have them," Kim told Variety.

Kim said she called up a store, bought five pairs of the Manolos for $700 each, and resold them on eBay for $2,500!

She said she became so "obsessed" with the return that she began to sell off her own clothes that she no longer wore.

In 2006, Kim and her sisters, Kourtney and Khloe, opened their first DASH store in their hometown of Calabasas, California.

The concept behind the store — a sort of consignment shop — was pretty similar to Kim's love for reselling.

"I was thinking, this might not last very long, but we'll grow a great business and expand online," she told Variety. "I thought it would be great press. I didn't think it would turn into what it turned into."

In 2018, Complex ranked "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" one of the best reality TV shows of all time, behind only MTV's "The Real World."

The opening of DASH Miami in 2009 brought about a new reality spinoff: "Kourtney and Kim Take Miami."

Khloe headlined season two, although Kim did appear in the season.

Kim was 27 years old during the show's first season, according to Insider.

In February 2007, a sex tape with Kim and Ray J — Brandy Norwood's brother whom Kim dated from 2003 to 2006 — surfaced and made its way into the news.

Kim sued the entertainment company distributing the tape at the time.

She reportedly settled the case for $5 million.

"I think that's how I was definitely introduced to the world," she said.

According to People, she said she was so nervous that she had to sit down with the magazine's founder and then-editor-in-chief, Hugh Hefner, who she credited with helping convince her to pose.

It's now on season 19.

In a promotional video, she called it "so high-fashion and so stylized, it's very me." Most of the outfits have an "'80s, futuristic" look, as described by Kim herself.

She said she developed it because people were continually asking her how she kept her curves in shape. She said that while working with a few trainers, she found a routine that worked for her, and built the videos around the method.

The DVDs are split up by physical focus — there's "Ultimate Butt Body Sculpt," "Amazing Abs Body Sculpt," and "Butt Blasting Cardio Step," which she says was inspired by her love for doing workout videos with her sisters in their teenage years.

The romantic comedy starred actors Chris Pratt and Denise Richards, has a 26% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and was produced by Persistent Entertainment.

It's a self-tanning gel created by the three sisters and was — at the time — exclusive to Sephora and cost $34. In 2019, there was a tube going for $79 on Amazon.

Six months later, Kim made her debut in the perfume world with her eponymous scent.

At the time, Kim was newly married to NBA player, Kris Humphries.

It was commercially released in March, according to Billboard. A New York Daily News headline following the song debut called Kim "the worst singer in the reality TV universe."

A portion of the proceeds reportedly went to St Judes Children's Research Hospital.

"I can't believe I did that," Kardashian said. But, she said she had fun!

They came under fire with the line when they were accused of working with abusive employers to make their clothes, StyleCaster reported.

Sears dropped prices to less than $10, according to StyleCaster. The brand officially folded in 2015.

In April 2011 she launched Gold, her second fragrance, according to Cosmopolitan.

There were only 979 bottles sold, according to Cosmopolitan — 1,000 were made, but 20 were reserved for her bridal party and one for herself on her wedding day.

The launch party in Hollywood benefitted Dress for Success, a charity organization, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

While Kim and Kylie are now heavily involved in their beauty brands, Khroma was a licensing deal, according to Fashionista.

Just in the first five days, the game reportedly grossed $1.6 million, according to The New York Times and Business Insider.

As of August 2018, the game was bringing in around $8 million in a quarter for the Glu Mobile company, according to Variety.

She posed naked for a cover story called "Break the Internet: Kim Kardashian." While the story didn't literally break the Internet, Kim did end up winning the first ever Webby award named after the achievement: The Break The Internet Award.

It was a small coffee table book filled with 448 pages of selfies she had taken between 2006 and 2014.

The book landed on the New York Times Bestseller list.

She reportedly told Rolling Stone that she'd only work with Kanye-approved graphic designers to develop the emoji.

Kim tweeted, "Apple, I'm so sorry I broke your App Store!!!"

She tweeted, "For the past few years Kanye and I have made almost all of our kids clothes and we have collaborated on a new kids line!"

According to Vogue, the entire first collection was inspired by Calabasas and included dresses, chokers, hats, sweatpants, and more. Later seasons included itty-bitty Yeezys, the luxury lifestyle sneakers developed by Kanye West and Adidas.

According to STAT, her initial post left out information on possible risks but was later corrected.

The first product: a $48 contour kit that sold out in minutes and racked up more than $13 million in sales, according to Fashionista.

TMZ reported that customers had a choice between three fragrances: Crystal Gardenia, Crystal Gardenia Oud, and Crystal Gardenia Citrus.

She didn't spend money on traditional advertising — instead, she turned to her devoted social media following.

And it worked. People bought her perfume without even smelling it first.

In June, Kardashian West agreed to seel a 20% stake in KKW Beauty to Coty Inc. (a publicly-traded firm), which valued the company at $1 billion, according to Forbes. This reportedly bumped her net worth to $780 million — more than double her last-reported net worth of $370 million.

The department store was the first traditional retail outlet to sell SKIMS, according to Insider.

She's appeared at events like Glamour's Women of the Year Summit, Create & Cultivate, the #BlogHer16 Conference, Re/Code, and more.

Although, the line between the two brands is a bit smudged.

"It's never too late to follow your dreams," she wrote on Instagram.

At the conference, she said that if a paid post opportunity comes her way, even one that's "off-brand," she thinks: "'O.K., well this can fund x amount of people behind bars, that can help free them with simple legal fees that they just can't afford ...'"

Robert Shapiro — a lawyer who worked with Kim's father on the O.J. Simpson murder trials — told TMZ that he thinks Kim has skills that will help her as a lawyer, and that she'll have a job offer from his firm if she passes the bar.