Kylie Cosmetics’ entire first batch of US$29 LipKits — liquid lipsticks and lip pencils — literally sold out just one minute after Kylie announced the launch to her 140 million Instagram followers and 13 million who followed her Twitter feed in November 2015. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index currently estimates her net worth at over US$1.02 billion ($1.4 billion), far more than all her “famous for being famous” half-siblings and their respective partners combined.
SINGAPORE (Aug 5): Who was the youngest person ever to become a billionaire? Here’s a clue: Forget Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs who started software or internet firms from their university dorm room or their parents’ garage. Last year, Kylie Jenner, the youngest of the Kardashian-Jenner reality TV star brood that includes her famous half-sisters Kourtney, Kim and Khloé, and sister Kendall, became a billionaire in her own right at the ripe old age of 20.
Behind every successful young entrepreneur these days is a software or an idea to sell something online. It is not a surprise, then, that a key enabler of Kylie’s spectacular success story was a software that helped achieve her goal of selling affordable cosmetics. With just five full-time employees, no sales staff, factories, warehouses or even a marketing budget, Kylie turned a simple idea into a billion-dollar business that she founded at 17 with a capital of US$250,000. She did not borrow money from banks, pitch her start-up to venture capital firms, tap her wealthy family for capital or woo private equity partners to help her venture grow. She funded it entirely from her own earnings made from modelling.
