Brand Person Of The Month : Jessica Alba

Alba & the $1 Billion Honest company

Last month, I talked about Tidal and the battle of Jay-Z to make his newest company to happen ( it still a mess if you want to know). That month I want to talk about an another celebrity brand business but this time it’s more successful and a bit more discreet.

Jessica Alba is best known for her acting career, but in January 2012, the celebrity ventured into entrepreneurship and launched The Honest Company. According to Forbes, Jessica Alba’s America’s Richest Self Made Women.

The Honest Company, which Alba founded in 2011, sells organic baby, cleaning and household products and is currently valued at $1 billion. Jessica’s 15% – 20% share gives her a personal net worth of around $200 million.

Alba’s story goes into how The Honest Company was founded, and it sounds like it livesup to its name. Alba saw a need for products that were eco-friendly, chemically safe and with a design that would appeal to modern moms. She wanted products that she would use for her family that didn’t exist under a single brand, so she created one. (Celebitchy)

I have followed Alba’s story for a while now. She’s been marketing herself her whole life, and her story is very congruent with her going on the eco-friendly, nontoxic home products business.

“Enough people have to get sick or die from a certain ingredient or chemical before it’s pulled from the marketplace,” says Alba.

She describes her startup as a “family company,” producing everything from detergents and personal care products to diapers and baby wipes. Alba’s inspiration for this business venture came from her most important role to date: a mother to her two young daughters. Businessnewsdaily.com

From Celebrity to Entrepreneur

A lot of famous people pivoted from celebrity to celebrity brand ambassador, to being famous entrepreneur. From Jared Leto who became a digital entrepreneur by launching his start up VyRT, Gwyneth Paltrow and her very famous celeb blog GOOP.com to Ashton Kutcher who has an impressive portfolio of more than 20 startups, including Flipboard, Airbnb, Spotify, Uber, Skype, and Fab.com.

What’s different in being a celebrity entrepreneur from being a celebrity endorser? The second is usually a temporary contract that coincide with a big career event (a new movie or a new TV show) . For example, Johnny Depp who has been announced to be the next face of Dior is perfectly in time with the new Pirates of the Caraibes. A celebrity entrepreneur is usually at a . And it usually seems to happen when a celebrity is in middle of a career move, a reconversion like Jared Leto who needed to make his rock band happen, during a maternity break like Alba or more recently Blake Lively with her business blog Preserve.us or when a movie

While her fame has definitely helped the company succeed, Alba also pointed to some frustrations that come from it. “People think it’s an endorsement,” she said. “They don’t know I came up with the idea.” (inc.com)