May
17, 2021
12 min read
Sometimes, all it takes to turn a bright idea into a breakthrough business is a run-in with the right person.
For Bobbi Brown, in 1991, it was a rendezvous with a man of science. “I met a chemist accidentally and asked him if he could make this dream lipstick,” she says. “He did, and the budding entrepreneur in me thought, ‘Well, people would like to buy this.’” At the time, Brown was a makeup artist disenchanted with stinky, greasy, dry lipsticks, so she came up with ten shades that women could wear to work. The line debuted at Bergdorf Goodman, and it was an instant success: Brown expected to sell 100 lipsticks in the first month, but she ended up selling 100 on the first day. Brown sold her company to Estée Lauder