Too Faced

A make-up brand founded by two friends with $30,000 in credit card debt sold for $1.45 billion 17 years later. Jared Blandino and Jeremy Johnson met at an Estee Lorde counter in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. They left to start two-faced in 1998 with a $30,000 personal credit line, launching out of a one-bedroom apartment with a single product, a lip plumper called lip injection. The brand grew through specialty retail and early adoption of beauty influencer marketing in the 2010-2015 window, where its better-than-sex mascara and chocolate bar became cult products on YouTube and early Instagram. Competing brands in 2014 were still shooting campaigns with professional models and placing ads in print.