Jessica Alba was at one point in her career one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood, starring in blockbuster flicks such as Fantastic Four, Sin City, The Eye, and Machete, just to name a few. But in 2011, the mother-of-three shifted her attention to becoming an entrepreneur as she launched The Honest Company, an American consumer goods brand that sells ethical household products.
The firm was such a success that by 2016, she pulled in an incredible $250 million in sales, and the following year, her company was estimated to be worth an astounding $1 billion, making it one of the fastest-growing retail businesses in the world.
These days, Alba doesn’t act as much as she used to, which is understandable considering how she’s probably earning more money doing practically nothing now that she’s established a booming brand, but the 39-year-old says he’s always looking for ways to better her products, with current plans to launch its line of beauty products worldwide.
How Did Jessica Alba Build Her Billion-Dollar Brand?
In an interview with Shape magazine, the California native revealed that she always wanted to start a business of her own, so when the opportunity came along, her main focus was to build an enterprise that felt authentic to the products she would want to use herself.
Alba noticed that when she was working on gathering investors together for her company, there weren’t many firms offering non-toxic everyday household products, which easily made her establishment a standout amongst her competition.
“I started a company that began with the idea that everybody wants to live an honest life and have non-toxic products in their homes that are also beautiful to look at,” she told the publication. “This embodied all the things that I aspired to have in my life.”
It wasn’t all that easy for Alba though, who admits that she was turned away by several potential shareholders who weren’t convinced that there was much a market for the products Alba was looking to launch across North America and Canada.
The actress was very adamant that her idea was going to explode once the company launched, but she had to do plenty of convincing beforehand.
Brian Lee, for example, the entrepreneur and founder of LegalZoom and ShoeDazzle, had initially shown interest to invest in the brand before making the decision not to attach himself to the project, leaving Alba to pitch her business plan elsewhere.
An entire year would go by before Lee would get back in touch with the Into The Blue star after his wife had welcomed their first child. It was then when he realized that Alba was right: there was a void in the market for products that weren’t filled with toxic ingredients, resulting in him changing his mind and sign on to become an investor after all.
Lee helped bring several of his long-time partners on board after selling the idea to them, and it wasn’t long after that when Alba had a full team backing her brand.
The company launched in 2012 with just 17 products, bringing in a whopping $10 million in sales by the year’s end, which once again proved that Alba was on to something. Fast forward to 2016 and The Honest Company had become a billion-dollar brand, earning upwards of $300 million in revenue with more than 200 employees working for the booming business.
The Honest Company was initially only set to sell its products online, but following its growing success, Alba and her team decided to expand by stocking its items at several leading retailers, including Target, Whole Foods, and Nordstrom, just to name a few.
Speaking on her decision to stock her products in these stores, she told Shape: “Yes, we're a mix of retail and online because I just didn't feel it was fair that you could only have access to quality products if you lived next to a certain kind of grocery store or retail outlet.
“I wanted a healthy, effective, well-designed, but affordable and accessible life. I also wanted a company that was transparent and gives back to the community. Anyone can order online at honest.com and get our products shipped to their houses no matter where they are in the country.”
Having initially launched with just products focused on babies and home, Alba now also stocks everything from shaving oil, deodorant, home fragrance, cleaning products, and organic cotton tampons — and sales just continue to skyrocket year-to-year.
When asked why she thinks her brand has managed to explode on the market in such a short amount of time, the brunette beauty humbly bragged: “I have an unfair advantage over my partners, because I am the customer, so I'm basically building and creating something that I would want, and that all of my friends and family would want.
“I feel like that's why it's done so well, because, at the end of the day, I'm the customer.”