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Toni Ko is a hugely successful entrepreneur who launched her first business, NYX Cosmetics, at 25 after spotting a gap in the market for quality beauty products at affordable prices.
She built NYX into such a popular mass market brand that she was able to sell the company to L’Oreal for $500 million in 2014.
As the majority owner, a long and comfortable retirement awaited her. But bored of the quiet life, she launched a brand new business, Perverse Sunglases, in 2016 and is rapidly making a big success of that too.
Now aged 43, Ko — whose net worth is estimated at $260 million by Forbes — is a much admired business superstar. Here are five reasons why.
Having moved to the U.S. from South Korea at age 13, Toni worked after school and at weekends for her parents’ successful beauty supply business in Los Angeles. She paid close attention to every aspect of the company, which started as a retail operation and switched to wholesale.
She dropped out of college to work full-time for her family, during which time she got a thorough education on everything from customer habits to product displays.
Once she had enough connections in the beauty industry, she launched her own company thanks to $250,000 in seed money from her parents and named it NYX after a Greek goddess. In her first year, NYX made $2 million in retail sales.
Toni spent her teenage years in Los Angeles trying out the cosmetics at high-end department stores. Unable to afford luxury makeup, she was disappointed by the products at the drug store.
So she decided to market quality products at prices teenagers could afford. She used her knowledge of the industry to do all the research and development herself, getting suppliers to make products to her exact specifications.
The results were an instant hit. The most popular NYX items items proved to be eye and lip pencils selling for between $1.99 and $3.50 — much less than the $10 typically charged by rivals like MAC Cosmetics and Urban Decay.
Spotting the rise of beauty gurus on YouTube, Ko started sending free products to social media stars. This saw sales rise still further thanks to endorsements from the influencers reviewing her cosmetics on screen.
Positive word of mouth proved a perfect marketing strategy. The online buzz surrounding her products helped get them in mainstream stores like Target and enabled NYX to ramp up its e-commerce business.
After 15 years of growth, she sold the company to L’Oreal, the world’s largest beauty conglomerate, in 2014 — when annual sales were on track to hit $120 million. The deal worked for both parties as L’Oreal has continued the big sales growth of NYX.
Suddenly jobless, Ko then embarked on her retirement plan to “sit on the beach and drink margaritas.” But the itch to start another business took hold after only a couple of days. Having signed a noncompete clause as part of her sale, she knew to steer clear of cosmetics this time.
Her other passion was sunglasses and Ko owned more than than 100 pairs herself, having paid around $300 for each pair. Thinking she could shake up that industry the same way she had with the cosmetics business, she launched Perverse Sunglasses in April 2016. The company sells stylish and colorful sunglasses for a more affordable $40 to $60 a pair.
She keep the extraneous costs down by learning about the supply chain, getting to know plastics manufacturers and flying to China to scout factory space. She then launched the business at the Coachella music festival a year ago.
Perverse started as an e-commerce business but now has four retail stores with many more planned and will expand this summer with products in major retail chains. Ko is bankrolling the whole operation herself but plans to raise further capital as sales surge.
By finding a winning formula of passion, hard work and smarts, Toni Ko clearly has the recipe for business success.
