How Emily Weiss Built Glossier: From $700 Blog to $1.8B Beauty Empire🚀💄

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Hey, Deal Lift crew! 🚀 

💡 What if I told you a simple blog could turn into a billion-dollar business? Sounds like a wild dream, right? Well, Emily Weiss made it happen—with just a $700 investment, a digital camera, and a vision that flipped the beauty industry on its head. Let’s break down how she built Glossier into a beauty giant (and what we can all learn from it).

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💄 The Beauty Industry’s Blind Spot

Back in 2010, Emily was a fashion assistant at Vogue, living the fashionista life while soaking up everything about the industry. But she noticed one big problem: Beauty brands weren’t listening to their customers. Instead of engaging with real people, they were just pushing products, assuming they knew best.

So, Emily did something bold.

She invested $700 in a digital camera, hired a developer with her savings, and launched a beauty blog called Into the Gloss—all from her tiny apartment. Her blog featured in-depth interviews called The Top Shelf, where celebs and industry insiders spilled their skincare secrets. People LOVED it.

She was working a full-time job at Vogue and still waking up at 4 a.m. every day to work on her blog before heading to the office. (Talk about dedication! 😳)

By early 2012, her blog was pulling in over 200,000 unique visitors a month. 🚀 And once she hit 10M monthly page views, she knew she was onto something much bigger.

🚀 The Leap from Blog to Brand

With a loyal community of beauty lovers, Emily saw an opportunity: Why not create beauty products with direct input from her audience?

In 2014, at just 28 years old, she pitched her idea to 11 VCs…and got rejected by ALL of them. Ouch. 😬 But she didn’t back down.

Eventually, she caught the attention of Kirsten Green (Forerunner Ventures), who saw her vision and helped her secure $2M in seed funding. Boom. 💥

That’s when Emily launched Glossier, a beauty brand that did things differently. Instead of following the old-school approach,

Glossier:

✅ Focused on simple, no-fuss beauty products 🧴
✅ Launched with just 4 products (quality over quantity!)
✅ Sold direct-to-consumer (skipping the retail middleman)
✅ Used Instagram & user-generated content as its main marketing tool 📲

And the strategy worked. BIG TIME.

📈 Meteoric Rise to a Billion-Dollar Valuation

Over the next four years, Glossier’s growth was insane.

💰 Nearly $100M raised to scale the brand
🏬 Opened its flagship store in NYC (which pulled in over 500K visitors in 2016!)
📈 In 2019, closed a $100M Series D round at a $1.2B valuation
🚀 By 2021, raised another $83M, pushing Glossier’s valuation to $1.8B

Of course, there were bumps along the way—especially during the pandemic when retail took a hit. But Glossier remains a powerhouse in the beauty industry and has cemented itself as a cult-favorite brand.

🔑 The Secret? LISTEN to Your Audience 🎧

Emily’s strategy was genius: She built an audience FIRST, then built a brand around them.

Instead of creating products and hoping people would buy, she actually talked to her readers, took their feedback seriously, and made products they WANTED. In many ways, her audience built Glossier for her.

👉 Takeaway for entrepreneurs? Talk to your customers. LISTEN to them. They’ll tell you exactly what they need—and if you build it, they’ll come.

And who knows? Maybe your side hustle is the next billion-dollar brand. 😉

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Stay awesome,

✨ Your Deal Lift Crew ✨