Everything Maureen Kelly said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Tarte Cosmetics has never spent a single dollar on traditional advertising
“Yeah, you know, we've never spent one dollar in advertising in Tarte ever.”
Kelly: Personalized PR gifting gets attention from top athletes
“Everyone loves personalization. So like pick these amazing athletes that are just killing it and doing so well because they're getting so much stuff, so they tend, you know, they tend to set it aside, but if it's Personalize and customize, you're gonna get a s…”
Tarte was the first cosmetics brand to use fabric packaging
“So I got the packaging from a pack, a packaging company that I found and talked them into doing this amazing lavender fabric packaging. No one in the industry had ever done it. We were the first ever.”
Tarte waited five years to launch mascara, typically a brand's top seller
“A mascara is Typically, a brand's number one selling product. I didn't have that for five years”
Kelly financed Tarte using her 9/11 victim fund instead of loans
“I wasn't taking out loans. Now I'm using my nine 11 fund, which is really tough because, you know, I knew that this is what Mark wanted for me.”
Kelly nearly lost her house and company after contract lab shutdown
“So we would have gone bankrupt. Bankrupt at that point. And all of our bank loans were personally guaranteeing guaranteed, like, by us. So, like, you know, including, like, our house.”
Tarte Cosmetics was technically bankrupt every other month in 2008 and 2009
“We were technically bankrupt like every other month for 2008 and 2009.”
Tarte Cosmetics was valued at $2.3 billion in 2020
“And in 2020, Is when my final, like, shares were done, and at that point we were valued at 2.3 billion.”
Tarte maintains a rare all-female C-suite in the cosmetics industry
“I have a president, I have a all-female C-suite, which is something I'm very proud of. It's very unusual, believe it or not, in the cosmetic industry to have women at the top.”
Kelly: SEO is a top-three digital revenue driver for Tarte Cosmetics
“I know it's like a little bit of a, people still think of it as like an older thing, but sometimes the oldies are the goodies, and we look at it, it's for our number two or number three revenue driver for us within, within digital marketing, so.”
Kelly launched Tarte using $20,000 in personal savings and credit cards
“Mark and I had 20,000 dollars in savings. And then I put the rest on credit cards.”
Troy Surratt was a silent partner before Kelly bought him out
“You know, he become a silent partner after a year or so, and just eventually I bought him out.”
Tarte generated up to $23,000 per minute on QVC during holiday broadcasts
“When you think about catapulting to another, like, level of sales you know, you can go on, especially in QIV, like, holiday time, and do, like, 23,000 dollars a minute.”
Estée Lauder and L'Oréal lost inventory access for a year after shutdown
“Estee Lauder, L'Oreal, they all manufactured there, and they made products for, like, you know, Bobby Brown and tons of company, tons of companies, you know, because they own them, and they couldn't get Any of their stuff for a year”
Kelly: Marketing experience would have stopped her naming product 'cheek stain'
“I wasn't like a marketing person. Had I been, I probably would not have named it a cheek stain.”
Sephora was not yet in the US when Tarte launched
“No, so Sephora wasn't even in the United States yet at that point.”
How I Built This 1