From Blog to Billion-Dollar Business: How did Glossier do it?

Dripping in millennial pink and permeating the makeup shelves of women across the world, beauty brand Glossier is the latest startup to reach unicorn status.

The 5-year-old company is now valued at over $1 billion after raising $100 million in their latest round of funding.

Although Glossier’s ubiquitous influence (and Instagram presence) seems to have happened overnight, the company comes from humble beginnings.

Glossier is the brainchild of founder Emily Weiss following the 2010 creation of her successful blog Into the Gloss, which featured interviews about beauty and skincare with women from all walks of life. In 2014, Weiss introduced Glossier as a makeup and skincare brand that’s all about “fun and freedom and being OK with yourself today,” rather than focusing on the aspirational identity that many makeup and beauty brands communicate in their messaging.

While classic beauty brands are often touted in luxurious magazine ads or salacious commercials, Glossier is for the modern woman. The Glossier customer doesn’t subscribe to the notion that beauty is a one-size-fits-all concept. It’s an individual experience that every woman embodies.

The top-down infrastructure where corporations decide the acceptable standards of beauty has been replaced with a bottom-up approach, where the customer calls the shots and the company follows suit.

In fact, Glossier’s ascension to the top can be almost entirely attributed to this idea alone. Not only is the customer always right: the customer defines the brand. I believe there are 3 core elements of Glossier’s business model that have led to its success.

Community first, product second

Weiss’s blog Into the Gloss quickly took off, reaching 10 million pages views per month after the first year. Was Weiss’s plan from the beginning to start a brand and monetize her audience? Maybe, maybe not. But in building this community, she discovered there was a need for makeup and skincare products made with the end user’s wants in mind, rather than products that were made just to turn a profit. By truly listening to the customer, she was able to iterate products that were in direct response to what her audience was asking for.

For instance, Weiss explains to Kara Swisher in an episode of Recode Decode that their process in developing a product line is intentional. "Can we actually put something out into the world that is better than what exists?" Weiss says, noting that they won't put out a product that doesn't serve the need of a customer better than what's already in the market. She goes on, "We have a direct relationship with every single person who buys something from us, unlike all of the incumbent companies that have been built through retail channels." When you have a community that tells you what you want, listen and take action.

The Customer = The Brand

Glossier prides itself on being a brand that is for everybody. After all, the company describes itself as “a people-powered beauty ecosystem.” You won’t find advertising collateral with big-name models or superstars. You’ll see images of women of all shapes, sizes, and colors on their platforms, often from user-generated content produced by real customers. By making the customer the nucleus of the the company, the walls between buyer and brand are torn down. They even have a Slack channel where top customers can communicate with and provide feedback to Glossier employees, as well as a commission-based program where Glossier “reps” can take a small chunk of a sale when they encourage a friend to buy.

State-of-the-Art Technology

Like most direct-to-consumer brands that have evolved in the past 5 years, there’s no room for mistakes when it comes to simplifying the customer buying journey online and investing in strong technology. As a marketer who works behind the scenes of a large eCommerce operation, I admire Glossier’s online presence and ease of use in ordering. Not only do many product pages feature how-to videos, but they also include a list of key ingredients, benefits, and user-generated images of real customers wearing or using the product. Plus, customer reviews take up most of the page, adding yet another layer of social proof. And with trendy, celestial product names like Milky Jelly Cleanser, Cloud Paint, Haloscope, and Lidstar, who wouldn’t want to buy from Glossier? Hats off to whoever’s job it is to decide on product names.

By building a consumer-centered business, Glossier has created a blemish-free company (pun intended) by building a loyal audience, listening to their needs, and creating a buying system that works for them. Any brand beyond just the beauty or tech industry could learn a thing or two by following the core principles that have made Glossier the billion-dollar brand it is today.