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投稿類別：英文寫作類

篇名： World’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaire: and the evolution from Kylie’s Lip Kit to KylieCosmetics

作者： 李尚恩。市立和平高中。高二 2 班。

指導老師：許俊傑老師

World’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaire: Kylie Jenner and the evolution from Kylie’s Lip Kit to KylieCosmetics

I. Introduction

1. Research background

The Kardashian-Jenner family has always been in the spotlight in the western world. Any small rumor regarding this family can stir up hot conversations on the internet. So when the baby of this family, twenty-one-year-old Kylie Jenner received the title of 'youngest self-made billionaire' from in 2019, heated internet discussion about her and her successful cosmetic company KylieCosmetics was divided into two extremes.

In 2016, at the age of seventeen, due to insecurities about her thin lips, Kylie created the Kylie’s Lip Kit, which immediately sold out when it launched. After the success of the lip kits, Kylie dove deeper into the make-up world, founding her own company KylieCosmetics and launching several other make-up products and collaborations with her famous sisters and mother.

Now that KylieCosmetics has become a widely known brand and continues to grow bigger and bigger, many people would like to know how a naïve seventeen-year-old could make it so far. There is no doubt that her famous family has given her an advantage but her success must also be regarded as her creative way of conducting KylieCosmetics.

2. Research motivation

As a sixteen-year-old city girl, I also developed a habit of managing social media and a strong interest in the make-up world. In addition, I grew up in Europe, and therefore learned to appreciate western make-up style. I wasn’t a big fan of the Kardashian-Jenners before Kylie’s Lip Kits came into the world. Kylie Jenner certainly dragged me into her cosmetic empire with her creativeness and ingenuity. In addition, I also wish to have further development in business and international trade in university, and there is no better role model and inspiration to me than Kylie Jenner herself as she embraced the great success of her business at the age of only twenty-one years old. As mentioned earlier, Kylie Jenner is the youngest self-made billionaire in history, which motivates me to find the reasons behind her success.

3. Research questions

Q1: Why is Kylie Jenner regarded as a self-made billionaire and why is this statement controversial? Q2: How does Kylie Jenner run KylieCosmetics to make this brand successful in the now saturated make-up industry? Q3: What is the distinction of KylieCosmetics to other businesses started by the same family?

1 World’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaire: Kylie Jenner and the evolution from Kylie’s Lip Kit to KylieCosmetics

4. Methodology

The research will be done according to professional reports describing Kylie Jenner and KylieCosmetics as well as autobiographies of her and her family members. The questions mentioned above will be explained and analyzed through the information of her family and the other businesses her family members have started.

II. Body

1. The background of Kylie Jenner

Born on the 10th of August 1997, Kylie Kristen Jenner is the youngest of the famous Kardashian-Jenner family. Since 2007, she has starred in the reality TV show Keeping up with the Kardashians with her parents and siblings. She has one older sister, and three famous half-sisters and a half-brother from her mother’s side. In 2013, Kylie and her sister Kendall launched the fashion collection “Kendall and Kylie” with PacSun, which marked the beginning of Kylie’s business career. She also co-wrote the fiction book Rebels: City of Indra: Lex and Livia with Kendall one year later. From her childhood experiences, it’s obvious that Kylie’s family is educating her to become a master in the realm of business.

The biggest turning point of Kylie’s life would be admitting to getting lip augmentation in May 2015, just a year after the rumors of Kylie getting plastic surgery. As a result of her action, the “Kylie Jenner Challenge”, when one challenges another to suction his or her lips into a small glass to swell the lips, went viral on the social media. Kylie Jenner was able to seize the opportunity the heated public discussion about her generated and announced that she would be launching her first lipstick line, Kylie’s Lip Kit in August. She used her 250,000 dollar modeling dough to produce the first 15,000 lip kits, which came out in three colors. Two years after launching Kylie’s Lip Kit, Kylie was placed no.59 of the Forbes 100, a list of the 100 highest-paid (Greenburg, 2017). At the age of nineteen, Jenner was the youngest on the list. In 2018, Kylie Jenner appeared on the cover of the August issue of Forbes with the title “Youngest self-made billionaire”, which became controversial since she came from an already famous and wealthy family. Jenner responded that she has only asked her family for advice and none of her money was inherited. As Kylie Jenner conquered the cosmetic industry, she marched further into the skincare world, launching Kylie Skin in May 2019. Also in 2019, Kylie Jenner ranked no.2 on the 100 highest-paid celebrities list, by Forbes (Greenburg, 2019).

Kylie started dating rapper Travis Scott in 2017 and gave birth to their daughter Stormi Webster in 2018, who became a great influence and inspiration to her make-up business.

2 World’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaire: Kylie Jenner and the evolution from Kylie’s Lip Kit to KylieCosmetics

2. The Kardashian-Jenner family and the members

The became famous when , the father, was the attorney defending O.J.Simpson in his 1995 murder case. He and his wife Kristen had four children, Kourtney, Kim, Khloe, and Robert Jr. Although Robert and Kristen divorced three years before the trial started, Robert Kardashian’s life was thrust into the spotlight because of this trial, including his ex-wife and his children. Robert passed away in 2003, but this family had just begun to make its way into the spotlight. In 1991, Kristen remarried Bruce Jenner (now ), a famous Olympic athlete and TV personality, and had two more children, Kendall and Kylie, with him. Kristen is known as the mastermind behind the Kardashian-Jenner family’s success, as she is the manager behind her children’s careers and business, including KylieCosmetics.

Finally, in 2007 the Kardashians scored their own reality TV-show Keeping up with the Kardashians on E! and is still airing today. The mother of the family, Kristen, has also hosted a talk show, Kris, which premiered in July 2013, on the Fox network.

The family became even more famous after , the second oldest member, got involved in several incidents, including becoming ’s personal assistant and having a leaked sex tape of her with her ex, rapper Jay Z in 2007. Kim Kardashian was regarded as the most famous member of the family and had the highest net worth prior to Kylie’s success (Meija, & Huddleston, 2019). Later in 2014, Kim also received a huge media attention when she married rapper .

3. KylieCosmetics

3.1 The launching of Kylie Lip Kits and the history of KylieCosmetics

After admitting to getting lip fillers to cover up the insecurity of having thin lips, Kylie Jenner saw a great business opportunity as the ‘Kylie Jenner challenge’ went viral on social media. She designed lip kits based on her own demands: a matte liquid lipstick with a matching lip liner to draw the lip line beyond the natural lips in order to create an illusion of a puffier lip. She asked her mother for help but her mother insisted on not giving her any financial support. Therefore, Kylie used the money she gained from modeling and throughout her childhood to produce an initial 15,000 lip kits. In August 2015, Kylie Jenner announced the launching of her $29 lip kits through her and accounts, with the promotional slogan ‘Kylie’s Lip Kit… for the perfect pout’. This gained massive attention. The lip kits came out in three different colors and were sold out within a minute. Within eighteen months, this newborn company had made 420 million in sales. "It came from an insecurity and I turned it into something. I was insecure about my lips, and

3 World’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaire: Kylie Jenner and the evolution from Kylie’s Lip Kit to KylieCosmetics lipstick is what helped me feel confident. And I feel like people could see that it’s authentic to me, and it was organic, and it just worked!" Kylie told TeenVogue (Jenner, 2018). In 2019, Kylie Jenner’s cosmetic line achieved the 1 billion milestone (Ruffo, 2017) three years before predicted, making her the youngest self-made billionaire ever. The great response to the lip kits helped Kylie produce even more lip kits and she founded her own cosmetic line – KylieCosmetics. After the success of Kylie’s lip kits, she further added Kyliner and Kyshadows to her cosmetic set.

Kylie Jenner knows very well how to catch her customers’ attention. Every season, special day or holiday, she would launch a special collection or collaboration which always came out in limited edition. For example, her 2016 holiday collection release made nearly $19 million in one day. She made good use of her already famous family and collaborated several times with different family members. KylieCosmetic’s first collaboration was with Kylie’s own half-sister, Khloe Kardashian. Together they created the KOKO collection, which contains four liquid lipsticks in different colors. Later on, Kylie collaborated with Kim Kardashian West, Kendall Jenner; and also her own mother for a special mother’s day collection. In 2019, Kylie collaborated with Oliver Rousteing, the creative director of Balmain and launched a collection of an eye shadow palette, a high gloss and a set of lip kits. This marked the first time Kylie collaborated with someone professional in the fashion industry and someone outside her family.

Subsequent to building up a cosmetic empire, Kylie Jenner set up KylieSkin and went further into the beauty industry by launching KylieSkin in February 2019. The packaging of the products is all in light pink, which is her favorite color. In November 2019, Kylie Jenner made a bold move when she sold up to 51% of KylieCosmetic’s for the price of 600 million dollars to the beauty management company Coty. They agreed that Kylie would remain the creative director and the face of this brand while Coty would be responsible for international management and other financial supply. Kylie stated that she believes that Coty can push her company to another level.

3.2 The management of KylieCosmetics

This billion-dollar cosmetic empire is built on only five whole-time workers, seven part-time workers and Kylie’s own mother as the manager. Manufacturing and packing are outsourced to Seed Beauty while sales and fulfillment are Shopify’s job. Finance and corporate duties are handed over to her mother Kris, who takes a 10% management fee for it. The rest of the profits go straight into Kylie’s pocket. Although for the present they have Coty to support this billion-dollar company, it is still astonishing how Kylie manages her business with her group. We can see her mastery of leading trends and the magic of social media when Kylie Jenner once again integrated her viral moment into her product and marketing mix when a video of her singing ‘riiise and shiiinnee’ to wake up her daughter went viral. The hashtag #RiseAndShine, #RiseAndShineChallenge became a new trend on social media and Kylie created several products

4 World’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaire: Kylie Jenner and the evolution from Kylie’s Lip Kit to KylieCosmetics related to this slogan. She successfully turned gossip into a great business idea and of course, everything sold out.

3.3 Promotion of KylieCosmetics

Undoubtedly, Kylie Jenner is one of the most followed people on both Instagram and . She had such strong access to an audience before she even started her cosmetic line, and she made good use of this head start. Before launching the initial 15,000 lip kits, Kylie used her social media as the marketing platform for her soon to be released products. Nevertheless, her lip kits will sell out within a minute since the world has already been watching the previews of Kylie pouting with the colors for months. Now she has over 160 million followers on Instagram and most of them are young girls, which is the targeted audience. According to Google, 59.6% of Generation Z actively uses Instagram and 56.4% uses Snapchat in the US. Now, only needing a small tap on Kylie’s Instagram post, you can easily find out which products of KylieCosmetics she used for her perfect glam. As YouTube is now one of the most used platforms for Millennials and Generation Z (Google, 2016), Kylie didn’t miss this chance for promotion and she set up a YouTube channel on which she not only debuts her products but also talks beauty with her friends and family.

There are many people who like to make online purchases, but there are also many people who don’t. In order to reach out to these costumers, KylieCosmetics began its cooperation with the retail store Ulta in 2016, to allow customers to have the chance to touch the products before purchasing. The products sold out faster than expected and Ulta made a greater import of Kylie’s products. Furthermore, Kylie also set up seven pop-up shops with Topshop throughout the to have more interaction with her customers. Kylie knows very well about what her customer wants. Not only did she sell the cosmetics, but she also provided several other accessories and KylieCosmetic merchandise along with a magnificent lip kit wall and a big bed for her costumers to take pictures of. This way of decorating the pop shops really boosted the popularity of KylieCosmetics.

Picture 1 &2: the bed and the lip kit wall in Kylie’s pop up shop

Picture source: Winter, D. (2017) The Kylie Effect: The Power of Offline Experiences for Online

5 World’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaire: Kylie Jenner and the evolution from Kylie’s Lip Kit to KylieCosmetics

Brands, Retrieved from https://www.shopify.hk/blog/212483913-kylie-jenner-pop-up

4. Other business companies owned by the Kardashian-Jenner family

This incredible family had created several product lines of their own before they were thrust into spotlight. From Smooch, the first boutique Kris and Kourtney founded to the children’s clothing line created by the three Kardashian sisters and the sock line created by , it’s obvious that this family has a strong interest in starting up businesses. Before KylieCosmetics, the women of this family also launched several beauty lines such as Kardashian Hair, Kardashian beauty and so on. Overall, only a few of them were successful and popular enough to persist. Below are three of the most well-known brands by the Kardashian-Jenner family in order to make a comparison with KylieCosmetics.

4.1 Arthur George Socks (2012)

Combining his own middle name with his father’s middle name, Rob Kardashian founded his own sock line in 2012. Along with Rob’s passion for designing men’s accessories, Arthur George Socks was born. This luxury sock line makes it possible for its customers to wear their feelings on their feet. But sadly after Rob had gone through a conflict with his ex-fiancée, Rob lost control of his life – along with the sock line, therefore forcing him to sell half of the company’s shares to his mother, , to solve his financial problems.

4.2 Good American Jeans (2016)

In an atmosphere of equality and self-care, Khloe Kardashian co-founded the denim line Good American Jeans with Emma Grede. Their goal is to create comfortable jeans in multiple sizes, therefore they insist on selling all sizes, from 0 to 24. The concept of this brand is to make jeans that fit you perfectly, not the other way around and to let women embrace and love their original body. The reaction of audiences were mostly positive, except that the price is a bit expensive compared to other denim brands. After all, it’s a luxury line.

4.3 KKW beauty (2017)

Kim Kardashian West decided to have a beauty line by herself after her collaboration with KylieCosmetics, which is the KKW crème liquid lipstick, became a success. With the launching of the $48 crème contour kits in June 2017, she officially founded KKW beauty. Kim’s first product launch from her new makeup brand KKW Beauty earned an estimated $14.4 million in sales. Later on she also launched perfume, body foundation and many other beauty products. “She’s almost 20 years older than me. I feel like my makeup is definitely more young, fun. And it’s just

6 World’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaire: Kylie Jenner and the evolution from Kylie’s Lip Kit to KylieCosmetics different,” Kylie Jenner stated (Jenner, 2017) when people wondered if it was possible to have two similar product lines in the same family.

5. Analysis of research

5.1 Comparison with other product lines founded by the Kardashian-Jenner family KylieCosmetics can be regarded as the most successful brand the Kardashians have ever founded. Almost all of the product lines established by the Kardashian-Jenner family are related to fashion and beauty, which TV reality show stars are best at. Although their reputation did attract a big number of customers. In the end, the product and the way they manage the business is still the core reason for whether the product line can last and shine. Below is the comparison of KylieCosmetics to the other three businesses mentioned above in point four.

Rob founded Arthur George socks due to his passion for designing men accessories, which is similar to the motivation Kylie had to create her cosmetic line—the love for make-up and her own demands. As for Good American Jeans, its initial purpose was to help women find jeans that fit their body structure and to love their body, no matter what size they wear. The above two product lines have one similar trait, which is being sold at a price much higher than other similar products. While KylieCosmetics, is sold at a slightly higher price than other similar cosmetic brands, it is still within the budget of most people. Although it might not be the core factor of Kylie’s products, it is still a quite important aspect that can cause repercussions in sales performance.

As for the comparison between KylieCosmetics and KKW Beauty, they’re both from the same family and in the same business category but they have a whole different set of values. The biggest difference between these two beauty businesses is that KylieCosmetics started off with lip kits, while KKW beauty had its initial launch with crème contours. The other big difference is that while KKW products mostly came out in nude shades or natural shades, KylieCosmetics liked to use vivid colors to attract the eyes of the audience and it also has a new collection every season and holiday.

5.2 Possible reasons why Kylie Jenner is regarded as self-made

Forbes defines ‘self-made’ as someone who built a company or established a fortune on her own, rather than inheriting some or all of it (Dolan, 2018). This is a general statement and there is a long list of people qualified for the definition. Therefore, Forbes also divided self-made into five different levels, from 10 to 6. Take for example. She is given the ranking 10 since she had a poor background and in addition had to overcome great obstacles. Meanwhile, Kylie Jenner is ranked 7, which has the definition of being born into a wealthy family and has a moneyed background as foundation.

7 World’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaire: Kylie Jenner and the evolution from Kylie’s Lip Kit to KylieCosmetics

Level 6 A hired executive or a hands-off investor who didn’t create the business Level 7 Self-made who got a head start from wealthy parents and moneyed background Level 8 Self-made who came from a middle- or upper-middle-class background Level 9 Self-made who came from a largely working-class background; rose from very little Level 10 Self-made who not only grew up poor, but also overcame significant obstacles Chart 1: the ranking of self-made people regarded of their background and condition Chart made by myself; information from Dolan, K. (2018) Forbes

As for the controversy of Kylie having a way better head start since being born into a wealthy and famous family, the Kardashian-Jenners have started up several product lines but none of these have ever been as successful as KylieCosmetics. Take Arthur Georg socks for example, Rob Kardashian comes from the same family with the same mother, but his sock line couldn’t have survived if Kris Jenner didn’t flow capital into it and buy 51% of it. And as for KKW beauty, Kim had even more advantages than Kylie when she started this beauty line. It is quite successful, but incomparable to the billion-dollar empire of Kylie’s. They all had the same conditions as Kylie, wealth and fame, but after all of that, only Kylie broke the record and it is her company that is valued the highest. Although people criticize her as ‘mom-made’ rather than ‘self-made’, we can’t ignore the fact that she did create a popular cosmetic world of her own.

5.3 Analysis of the key for KylieCosmetic’s success

Kylie Jenner designed her lip kits based on her demands for a bigger lip. Her success can be attributed to her creativity, innovative way of leading her company, time and money-saving management and most importantly—always being able to create products matching teenagers’ anticipation and fueling their impulse for shopping. This resulted in, whether you agree or disagree, making her the youngest self-made billionaire ever.

Kylie also made a right decision by starting up her business with lip cosmetics. Under today’s economy, average people tend to buy less expensive luxuries such as lipsticks instead of luxurious fur coats or jewelry (Agarwal, 2020). People like to buy simple cosmetics that are quick to apply and also have a lower price in comparison to other makeup products. Thus, if Kylie didn’t begin her business with the lip kits, she might not have come this far.

III. Conclusion

1. Research findings

Growing up under the spotlight really gave Kylie Jenner a massive advantage to become a successful cosmetic mogul. Her family, especially her mother, also gave her much support and

8 World’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaire: Kylie Jenner and the evolution from Kylie’s Lip Kit to KylieCosmetics advice to manage her beauty company. But only a handful people with similar advantages as Kylie could reach her level of success. She made good use of her creativity to meet her own demands for a product and the power of social media to reach out to the audience. This resulted in starting up a cosmetic empire and becoming the youngest ‘self-made’ billionaire.

Through the process of investigating Kylie Jenner and KylieCosmetics, I saw some revelations. The present trend is to buy things that both solve problems and also add fun to a busy daily life. Another significant point in KylieCosmetic’s success is that the internet has an irresistibly strong impact on our life and values. The trend in the future will undoubtedly be an aptitude towards online business, but at the same time, the retail stores remain an essential part of commercial activity, as they can further reach out to potential customers. Living in a world full of vicissitudes, it is crucial to catch the core of people’s demands and expectations in order to distinguish ourselves and become a bright shining star.

2. Research limitations

Because Kylie Jenner and her family are American and most of the events happened abroad, there are many obstacles to make a questionnaire to have advanced research in the views of the mass population. And there are only so many books available in Taiwan, therefore most of the information is from magazines and internet newspapers.

IV. References

1. Jenner, K., & Hunter, K. (2012) Kris Jenner… And All Things Kardashian. New York: Gallery Books/Karen Hunter Publishing. 2. Rusick, J. (2019) Kylie Jenner: Contemporary Cosmetics Mogul. North Mankato: Abdo Publishing. 3. Agarwal, P. (Feb 12, 2020) The Lipstick Effect, Intelligent Economist. From https://www.intelligenteconomist.com/lipstick-effect/ 4. Robehmed, N. (Jul 11, 2018) How 20-year-old Kylie Jenner Built A $900 Million Fortune In Less Than 3 Years. Forbes. From https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesdigitalcovers/2018/07/11/how-20-year-old-kylie-jenner- built-a-900-million-fortune-in-less-than-3-years/#16b77ef3aa62 5. Mejia, Z., & Huddleston, T. (Mar 5, 2019) How Kylie Jenner Became the World's Youngest Self- made Billionaire At 21, CNBC, From https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/05/forbes-kylie-jenner-is-the- worlds-youngest-self-made-billionaire.html 6. Dolan, K. (Jul 13, 2018) Here's What Forbes Means By Self-made: From Bootstrappers To Silver Spooners. Forbes. From https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2018/07/13/heres-what-forbes- means-by-self-made-from-bootstrappers-to-silver-spooners/#6adb16791ca3

9 World’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaire: Kylie Jenner and the evolution from Kylie’s Lip Kit to KylieCosmetics

7. Robehmed, N. (Mar 5, 2019) At 21, Kylie Jenner Becomes The Youngest Self-made Billionaire Ever Natalie. Forbes. From https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2019/03/05/at-21-kylie- jenner-becomes-the-youngest-self-made-billionaire-ever/#3e161e6c2794 8. Weiner, Z. (May 2, 2018) How Kylie Jenner's Lip Insecurities Inspired Her To Launch . Teenvogue. From https://www.teenvogue.com/story/kylie-jenner-lip-insecurity-kylie-cosmetics 9. Eckardt, S. (Nov 14, 2018) Rob Kardashian Has Lost Full Control Of His Sock Company. W Magazine. Fromhttps://www.wmagazine.com/story/rob-kardashian-arthur-george-socks-kris-jenner/ 10. Hillier, L. (Dec 4, 2019) Behind Kylie Jenner's Success in a Saturated Cosmetics Industry From https://econsultancy.com/behind-kylie-jenner-s-success-in-a-saturated-cosmetics-industry/ 11. Gross, E. (May 28, 2019) How Emma Grede And Khloe Kardashian Are Building Their Size- inclusive Fashion Line Good American, Forbes. From https://www.forbes.com/sites/elanagross/2019/05/28/good-american/#7b72221163a6 12. Ilchi, L. (Nov 20, 2019) A Timeline Of Kylie Jenner's Beauty Brand, WWD. From https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-scoops/how-kylie-jenner-turned-kylie-cosmetics- beauty-empire-into-1-billion-dollar-business-1203374667/ 13. Google. (Oct 24, 2016) It's Lit: a guide to what teens think is cool, From https://storage.googleapis.com/think/docs/its-lit.pdf 14. Ruffo, J. (Dec 14, 2017) $450 Million! 20 Lipsticks! How Kylie Jenner's Kylie Cosmetics Dominated 2017, People. From https://people.com/style/kylie-jenner-cosmetics-2017-news/ 15. Skinner, K. (Jun 14, 2017) Kim Kardashian Beauty Line KKW Is Different Than Kylie Cosmetics: Here's How, Billboard. From https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/lifestyle/7834022/kim-kardashian-west-kkw-beauty- kylie-jenner-cosmetics 16. Terlep, S. (Nov 18, 2019) Kylie Jenner Sells $600 Million Stake in Beauty Business, The Wall Street Journal. From https://www.wsj.com/articles/kylie-jenner-sells-600-million-stake-in-beauty- business-11574084772

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