It’s been proven that whatever the KarJenners touch turns to sold. And there is one lady behind-the-scenes that keeps it all on track: momager extraordinaire Kris Jenner.
The Jenner Communications CEO confirmed to CNBC that her daughter Kylie Jenner’s cosmetics company generated $420 million in revenue in just its first 18 months of operation. (According to WWD, if those numbers continue, Kylie is projected to be a billionaire by the time she’s 25.)
“The goal in the future is to just build the whole infrastructure, and figure out what a retail model might look like that could take it globally,” Kris told CNBC’s Courtney Reagan Tuesday. “She’s just scratched the surface and there is so much more to do with the brand.”
Jenner adds that Kylie Cosmetics is completely self-funded by the 20-year-old star (who is expecting her first child with boyfriend Travis Scott), and there are currently no equity partners.
“Right now she’s super smart about keeping it all in the business,” Kris said. “She owns it 100 percent herself, and she doesn’t have any investors. It makes for a wonderful opportunity to expand.”
When asked if cosmetic giants like Estée Lauder and L’Oréal have expressed interest in the brand, Kris maintain that attaching Kylie Cosmetics to a bigger brand would be “really advantageous” for the future of the company.
“We’ve talked to a few people, and certainly there is interest, but we’ll see what happens,” she said.
Regardless of any impending offers – and the impending new arrival on the way – Jenner says that she thinks her daughter will retain her laser focus on the success of the brand.
“I don’t think she sees herself stepping away from this brand for many years,” Kris said, adding, “She’s doing this because it’s really her passion. It’s so authentic to who she is, because she’s been wanting to do this since she was a little girl. To see her have this kind of success with something she really loves has been really great. ”
Kris continued to make her press rounds in NYC, attending WWD Apparel & Retail CEO Summit where she spoke on a panel moderated by designer Tommy Hilfiger about the Kardashian-Jenner retail empire.
She opened up about how she helped her daughter launch Kylie Cosmetics and the speed bumps they faced in the beginning.
“It was always Kylie’s dream to have a beauty brand and makeup company. She said [to me], ‘I really want you to help me do this and figure it out.’ And we tried launching some lip kits and they sold out in minutes, if not seconds,” she shared. “I realized that we have a real viable business on our hands. It was crazy. The fulfillment center couldn’t really get them out fast enough and the site crashed three times. I realized we had to get a manufacturer really quickly that could handle the volume and get a fulfillment center pulled together.”
Kris drove up and down the Southern California coast until she found the perfect spot.
“I was looking things up on Google and visiting fulfillment centers and looking for a manufacturer that could manufacture at those quantities,” she shared. “I found the manufacturer that I was really excited about and they didn’t have a fulfillment center. So I went to the factory and I said, ‘What about this area over here? Let’s just do it right over here.’ That was a bit of a push but I convinced them that it was a really good idea. That was amazing for us, because it made it so much easier and it kept everything really tight inside that circle. Before we knew it, Kylie was talking to her fans and her followers and every single social media platform that she had was so receptive to this brand. And it just exploded.”
Another huge milestone for Kylie Cosmetics is the brand’s philanthropic partnership with Smile Train, to raise funding to provide cleft lip surgeries to young children.
“She decided to name a Lip Kit Smile, and she gave all the proceeds to Smile Train, and she was able to make a million dollars. And she was 19 years old and making a difference in the world, and we flew Peru and see a surgery,” Kris said “And those are the things I’m proudest of — when they do stuff like that.”
She added: “Any time your kids do something that’s a success, it makes you very proud and very happy. And I think that makes me want to do it even more and work harder for the next one, the next time.
–with reporting by Sharon Kanter