Photo:Jamie Magnifico; Courtesy of Simon & Schuster
Jamie Magnifico; Courtesy of Simon & Schuster
Marisa Metzler.Jamie Magnifico
Jamie Magnifico
Asked if she’s heard from Weiss lately, Meltzer says: “I asked for her or a rep from Glossier to tell me if they’ve read it, thoughts, future plans, and all of that and never received a response. I would be surprised if she hasn’t read it, though.”
This was the peak and pinnacle of Glossier, before the pandemic when a third of its workforce was laid off, before allegations of a toxic workplace and lack of product innovation. This was the moment when Weiss was sending out the signal that she and her company were fully committed to the big time. In the years since her blog, Into the Gloss, became a beauty brand, she had amassed even more high-powered fans as the financial market began taking it seriously.Beyoncé, Serena Williams,Michelle Obama,Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,and the US women’s soccer team during their apotheosis as role models were all members of “Generation G.”Reese Witherspoonwore Glossier makeup to the Oscars. They were minting smiles and money.
Weiss graced the cover ofTimemagazine as one of the Next 100 Most Influential People in November 2019. That was after she had been on the cover ofFast Company and Entrepreneur, and madeForbes’s30 Under 30list. She occupied a cult of personality even among her own girlboss cohort. Leandra Medine said, of her media company Man Repeller’s inception, “I think it started with Into the Gloss because I was like, ‘Oh wow, look at how Emily is, like, growing her one-person blog into a media company, I can do that too.’ And then after she launched Glossier, I was like, ‘Hmm, I don’t know about that.’ "
Courtesy of Simon & Schuster
From a financial standpoint, Glossier was continuing to gain steam—and gaining the attention of venture capital firms as it pursued its next rounds of funding. Weiss was good in the room, and that early on, a lot of fundraising was about getting people to believe in her potential. Weiss was always good at selling herself, but she had gotten better at selling her sharpened vision of her company’s plan.The gross profit margins for beauty are high. Glossier’s were about 80 percent, according to more than one former employee. As face wash does not cost a lot to make—the real cost is in the marketing—and beauty companies have the potential to scale, both of which are attractive to venture capitalists. The money allowed them to expand office space, add forty employees, and launch a dozen products.If funding had been tricky in Glossier’s initial seed rounds, it was getting easier. In fall 2016, Glossier raised another $24 million in Series B financing. For its Series C in early 2018, the round added $52 million in investment. That same year,Bloombergreported that Glossier had crossed into $100 million in revenue and brought on one million new customers. And those customers wanted to shop IRL.Retail employees were called offline editors, in a confusing nod to Weiss’s former editorial world (those in customer service were “online editors”), and wore light-pink jumpsuits with stickers that declared their preferred pronouns. The job listings for retail were posted on Instagram—a savvy way to hire existing fans—and were treated like casting calls. The first round was a self-taped video, like an audition. A lot of them consisted of Weiss superfans who said she was their idol.If a candidate made it to the second round, there was a phone call with a store manager. The biggest red flag at that stage was a reluctance to talk—a surprisingly large number of candidates wouldn’t pick up the phone and would respond that they’d prefer to do the interview over text message, which didn’t bode well for a job in retail. The third round was in person.They were asked questions such as “How do you envision Glossier benefiting from your experience?” The pay at Glossier’s retail shops was competitive, around $20 per hour depending on the level of seniority and the city, with benefits if they worked full-time. The lucky few who made the cut got to experience orientation, Glossier-style. They passed around a Body Hero lotion and made orgasm noises over how good the white flower scent was. “They just needed to convince these twentysomething girls this was the best scent ever to sell products. I loved it at the time, but it now smells overly synthetic and gross to me, which is an apt metaphor for my experience,” said one retail employee.
Glossier Founder and CEO Emily Weiss.Vivien Killilea/Getty
Vivien Killilea/Getty
source: people.com
