Her name is Kylie Jenner. She is only 21 and she is the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. It used to be Mark Zuckerberg who held the title at the age of 23. And she is a Kardashian.
According to a Forbes report, most of Kylie Jenner’s money is from sales of Kylie cosmetics. The report states that the make-up company is worth over $900 million, having made an estimated $360 million in revenue just last year. Forbes estimates that the addition of cash Jenner has already pulled from the profitable business makes the 21-year-old a billionaire, with an estimated fortune of $1 billion.
Kylie used to sell her makeup online and briefly in pop up shops. Then she secured an exclusive distribution deal with Ulta, the beauty retailer which helped Kylie roll its $29 lip kits—a matte liquid lipstick and matching lip liner—into Ulta’s 1,000-plus stores.
Over the next six weeks, Kylie Cosmetics sold $54.5 million worth of products in Ulta, according to estimates from Oppenheimer. “I popped up at a few stores, I did my usual social media—I did what I usually do, and it just worked,” she says.
Kylie credits social media as one of the catalysts for her success. According to her, “It’s the power of social media. I had such a strong reach before I was able to start anything.”
Kylie has a lot of fans and followers on social media, over 175 million spread across Snapchat, Instagram (128 million), Twitter (26.7 million) and Facebook (22 million)
Her response to the recognition is “I didn’t expect anything. I did not foresee the future “But [the recognition] feels really good. That’s a nice pat on the back.”
