In the summer of 2010 Emily Weiss, a fashion assistant at Vogue, had the idea to start her own fashion blog. She bought a used camera, the domain intothegloss.com, and a couple months later the site was live. Into the Gloss showcased the real-world beauty routines of fashion influencers and celebrities. The blog was an immediate hit and by 2012 it received more than 200,000 visitors per month.
Eight years later, what do you think the site is worth? Millions? Tens of millions? While that would be an insane success for a blog, it’s not even close to the correct answer of $1.2 billion.
From Into the Gloss Emily created Glossier, the groundbreaking beauty brand now valued at over $1 billion. That’s the power of an audience.
At first Emily’s story seems like an incredible outlier: a billion dollar company born from a blog? How many times has that really happened? More often than you might think.
Curious? I break down Emily's story and dozens of other examples in a new long-form essay:
| Read The Billion Dollar Blog |
If you enjoy the post please let me know in the comments!
-Nathan
P.S. I'd really appreciate it if you'd share the essay social or text it to a few friends.
I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
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