And she became the youngest self-made female billionaire of all time at the age of 21, surpassing Mark Zuckerberg, who became a billionaire at the age of 23.

Over the past three years, Kylie Cosmetics products have primarily been sold online, only recently being sold in stores in retail chains around the world.

But after signing an exclusive distribution deal with Ulta, the beauty retailer, Kylie Cosmetics launched its $29 lip care kit, which includes a liquid lipstick and combination with lip liner into more than 1,000 Ulta stores.

Jenner herself took to Houston’s Richmond Avenue Ulta to greet customers, sign autographs on lip care kits and, of course, pose for souvenir photos with fans.

Over the next six weeks, Kylie Cosmetics sold $54.5 million in products at Ulta stores, according to estimates from independent financial consulting agency Oppenheimer.

“I showed up in a few stores, I promoted on my usual social media. I did what I’ve always done, and it worked,” Jenner said.

Boosted in part by expanded distribution with Ulta, Kylie Cosmetics’ revenue grew 9% last year to an estimated $360 million.

With that growth, and even using the lowest common multiples of the booming makeup industry, Forbes estimates Jenner’s company is now worth at least $900 million.

The entire company is owned entirely by Jenner. Add in the cash Jenner reaps from her profitable business, and the 21-year-old has become a billionaire, with an estimated fortune of $1 billion.

What’s special and extremely interesting is that Jenner has become the youngest self-made billionaire, acquiring a ten-figure fortune at an even younger age than Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the social network Facebook ( 23 years old to become a billionaire).

Beauty care products from Kylie Cosmetics, the company Jenner founded in 2015, are very cheap, but their huge profits flow into Jenner’s account.

The young girl’s empire consists of only 7 full-time employees, and one part-time worker. Product manufacturing and packaging is outsourced to Seed Beauty, a private label manufacturer in nearby Oxnard, California. Online seller Shopify is responsible for product distribution. 

Jenner’s astute mother Kris performs the role of financial and communications manager, in return receiving 10% of all management fees paid by the company. Marketing is primarily through social media, where Jenner has garnered a significant fan base. There, Jenner announces new product launches, showcases newly launched products, and showcases live product test images by Jenner to her 175 million followers on Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. and Twitter.

“That’s the power of social media, I had a lot of followers before I started anything,” Jenner said.

When Kylie Cosmetics launched in Ulta stores in 50 states, the market reaction was a real-life version of the online craze Jenner created years earlier, when her initial kits sold out on network in less than a minute.

Shoppers at Ulta stores milled about. In some stores, inventory was gone in just a few hours. “They sold out faster than we expected,” admits Tara Simon, Ulta’s senior vice president of merchandising.

Ulta and Jenner are an ideal couple. With a mix of expensive prestige brands, like MAC Cosmetics, and cheaper options, like Nyx Professional Makeup, Kylie Cosmetics is more competitive than its direct competitors, Sephora products are priced sell more expensive.

Analysts say Kylie Cosmetics is attracting younger customers through Ulta’s stores for teens who may not have credit cards to shop online.

Plus, selling in physical stores gives Jenner the opportunity to reach people who would never buy my products online, she says. These are people who want to come see, touch and feel the products before they decide to buy them.

Ulta has a large network of stores across the United States, targeting a teenage audience with stores along the coasts across Central America. Ulta also has 714 more independent stores than Sephora. Meanwhile, Ulta is a brand that doesn’t require additional marketing.

Until now, the retailer hasn’t needed much time to launch the brand in stores using traditional marketing styles, which is unheard of. Simon Simon says: [Jenner’s] ability to communicate in a split second with over 120 million different people is truly powerful.

Jenner has done well online, and only that can take her far, said Shannon Coyne, an equity research analyst at BMO Capital Markets.

She probably realized: ‘If I want to grow, I have to scale and to do that, I need a partner.’ Ultimately, she wanted to grow her brand and she needed this store’s presence to do that.

Indeed, Kylie Cosmetics has seen a significant slowdown in growth recently. The company went from essentially zero to $307 million in revenue within a year of launching but only saw single-digit growth in 2017 and 2018, Forbes wrote. Although the company added 30 new products in 2017, including concealers and makeup brushes, and more products with other color combinations in 2018.

It should be mentioned that this is not the first time Ulta has helped boost sales for a businessman in the beauty industry. IT Cosmetics, co-founded in 2010 by Jamie Kern Lima, joined Ulta in 2012 and quickly grew revenue to $117 million in 2014. In August 2016, L’Oréal paid $1 .2 billion USD in cash to buy back this cosmetics brand.

Will Jenner follow a similar route? She firmly rejected the idea of ​​selling her company. But her mother cared. “There’s always something we’re willing to explore,” Kris told Forbes last year.

Currently, Jenner is focusing on expanding her product range to include powder, eye shadow, makeup powder and blush for Ulta. “I see [Kylie Cosmetics] going very far. I work very hard,” Jenner said.

Whatever happens next, one thing is certain: Jenner will share them all on social media, to the delight of her tens of millions of fans.

After all, she is the first self-made female billionaire at a very young age