e.l.f. Cosmetics

“So all of a sudden, we walked in day one, and we had 400 orders.”

“In what they call the trial and travel section, so we were able to put two or three different items there, the same item, different colors, and we had a bin, and that really was ended up being a game changer for us.”

“So when Elf first launched in Target, they were forecasted to do 60 dollars per linear foot per store per week. Out of the gate, we were at a hundred dollars per store per week.”

“Scott was, in, in full disclosure, still working for other cosmetic companies, but working for us on the nights and weekends. He was doing the product development. So, yes, we did use my father's apparel office.”

“I want to say about 400,000.”

“And it took about six to eight weeks, and I, we shipped a 192,000 orders from China, direct to customers in the U.S., and then that really, you know, that year we were projected to do two million dollars for the year.”

“I go, how about I give you some equity in my company? He said, I don't think so. I think we really need the 5000 dollars. So we gave him 5000 dollars.”

“The valuation of the company was probably, it was about seventy million dollars.”

“That was the problem in the early days, that you had a few incumbents that owned a bunch of brands and controlled all the space at retail. So you had L'Oreal, which was L'Oreal and Maybelline. You had P and G, which owned cover girl at the time. So there was n…”

“Basically what we learned really early on is when you break down the cosmetics to formulations and componentry, formulations, yes, you can hit that price point. The real artistry, if you may, is in the componentry, where we couldn't afford metal, we had to go …”

“Revlon launched a brand called Vital Radiance. Now you probably don't remember, ever heard of it. And L'Oreal launched a brand called Hip to compete with Mac. And the major premise of both those brands was we are going to sell more expensive cosmetics in the d…”

“More than that, but correct.”

“After this spike, we did about eight million dollars. We were profitable.”

“One of our biggest obstacles in the early years was retailers afraid to put our product on shelves. Cause they didn't want to trade the customer down. If they're selling a six dollar lip gloss and I'm selling a dollar lip gloss and they customer buys mine over…”

“I think when we created the brand in 2002 and three and four, our biggest obstacle was how are we going to get space in a retail environment controlled by four guys? I think today, now it's how are you going to own the most amount of attention from the consume…”

“The fitness business is a good business, but it's not nearly as exciting as the beauty business. Beauty business is trendy. It's quick. There's virality. There's a lot of excitement. There's a lot of M&A deal. Like there's a lot going on. The fitness business …”

“One of my buyers told me a long time ago something that really stuck with me. Price is what you pay, and value is what you get. And as long as we're committed to continuing to offer our customer extreme value, she doesn't want us to be stuck to the one dollar …”

“I remember at the end of 2010, we were doing about thirty million dollars in sales.”

“We, it was a 150,000 dollar order. ... We bought the goods. It was one container. It was about 600,000 pieces.”

“So I'm saying we, even you put all those together, I think we were able to hit maybe a 125,000 dollars a month, but I think it was barely to cover costs. There was no growth. Any new inventory had to be funded by my father's capital.”

“They said, either you're in all Walgreens by next month, highly unlikely, or open a website so that the customer can get you.”

“So it's about, it was about half of that, because our target goods cost was about 35 cents. I think back to the simplicity angle, everything we sold it for 59 cents, so they could retail it for a dollar.”

“Well, just a few weeks after Joey and I did this interview, Scott was, in fact, ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Fresno, California.”

“We went from getting 300 orders a week to 18,000 orders a day for the next six weeks.”

“L'Oreal came through with the best offer. They offered us about two hundred and twenty five million dollars for the whole company, and we were very excited at that point, and we were ready to sign, and now this is lock, stock, and barrel.”